The growing culture of emotional incontinence in politics and business is a dangerous path to tread, says Ruth Sunderland, editor of Observer Business & Media

Gordon Brown’s ‘Tears with Piers’ interview has been overshadowed by the revelations about his volcanic behaviour in my Observer colleague Andrew Rawnsley’s fascinating new book, but it is still emblematic of the times.

The PM’s decision to play the sympathy card in his television interview with former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, is intriguing for what it says about modern media mores.

Brown is not the first serving Prime Minister to cry in public: Churchill was frequently spotted with moist cheeks, but then Sir Winston could do whatever he wished.

No-one would blame Brown for being emotional after having suffered tragedy in his life including the death of his baby daughter. The problem was that it did not seem natural to have him bare his soul: it was a spectacle, like a performing bear being goaded by the crowd.

The apparent public demand that leaders – whether in business or politics – should show their human side can easily turn into a cruel, voyeuristic form of theatre which diminishes both the participants and the audience. The prime quality we should require from our leaders should be the ability to lead, not the ability to emote on demand.

"There is more than a whiff of sympathy-seeking in the general zeitgeist."

There is another problem with the sympathy strategy: the law of diminishing returns sets in very quickly. One lot of tears might gain favourable headlines, but the effect soon dissipates with the second, third and subsequent episodes.

Leaving aside the PM, there is more than a whiff of sympathy-seeking in the general zeitgeist. His near namesake, former BP boss Lord Browne, has brought out an autobiography, in which he paints a highly flattering self-portrait of a visionary business leader tragically brought low when a former boyfriend went to the tabloids. Browne does deserve some sympathy, but unfortunately, the main effect of the book has been to remind people of a scandal that had been largely forgotten.

As the economist Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out in his book Freefall, bankers are also engaging in a bout of me-too victimhood. Stiglitz quotes an anonymous financier who likens the treatment meted out since the credit crisis to the Nuremberg laws imposed on Jews in Nazi Germany. He also cites a ‘Tarp wife’ who says it is similar to the Maoist purge of intellectuals. Talk about a persecution complex.

There are a number of reasons why the UK has become a less buttoned-up society: mass grief at the death of Princess Diana, the decline of collective institutions such as the church and the rise of individualism, the growth in the therapy and selfhelp industries – even reality TV. It might even have begun with Gazza, who pioneered the art of male crying after his blubbing antics in the Italia ‘90 football tournament.

In many ways the end of the stiff upper lip may be a good thing, but the exporting of a culture of emotional incontinence into politics and business is a dangerous path to tread.

The people who run the country, and the people who run our largest companies, should be judged by their results, not their feelings.

Attempts to appeal to the public on an emotional rather than a professional level are demeaning all round. Call me old fashioned, but I’m not mad keen on a lachrymose leader.

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