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The first time I interviewed Gordon Brown it was on the understanding that he’d let me know if he was gay.

Back in 1996 he was a relatively unknown quantity, a very private man perceived as a dour Scot whose only reported spare-time pursuits involved sitting in libraries swotting up on post neo-classical endogenous growth theory.

Which led to rumours about his sexuality that Sue Lawley put to him on Desert Island Discs.

I was merely giving him a platform to show that far from being a gay Gordon he was a passionate womaniser, as well as a fanatical football fan who loved blokeish banter and a drink. A bit of a lad. The Loaded Shadow Chancellor.

The following week I interviewed Labour’s other heavyweight, Robin Cook, who’d been ordered to wear “autumnal-coloured” shirts and ties, and trim his beard, to prove he wasn’t a red garden gnome but, in a decent light, a bit of a hunk.

I was being spun, of course. But this was the mid-1990s, when spinning came easier than breathing in New Labour circles and perception, not reality, was what mattered.

Publicly, Brown stayed spun right up to the moment he walked out of Downing Street a beaten man, four years ago. The frozen smile, forced gags and the pretence of loving TV soaps all presented to convince us he wasn’t an intensely driven intellectual who loved nothing better than getting lost in the small-print of economic policy, but the affable bloke next door who wanted to chew the fat about Top Gear.

He wasn’t. Away from the cameras Brown was warm, witty and relaxed. Paranoid and narky at times, too, but sometimes for the right reasons. He was also passionate about his principles and his country, as anyone who saw him almost single-handedly save the Union this summer can testify.

I thought of that first meeting with Brown when he announced his ­retirement from politics this week and wondered why he ever let the spin doctors portray him as someone that he wasn’t.

I asked him back in 1996 if he was a socialist and if he’d stay one if Labour won power? “Yes. Definitely,” he replied.

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“My values are enduring. I entered politics because I had a clear goal. I wanted to tackle poverty and unemployment and that’s what I still want to achieve.”

As even his enemies now admit, he did that, and plenty more. He made mistakes but right to the end he stayed as true to his beliefs as politics allows. Beliefs that came from deep within.

Which is the same place I think Ed Miliband’s beliefs come from. Like Brown, he is in awe of his deeply committed father. And like Brown he’s making the mistake of letting media advisers turn him into something he isn’t. Something trite.

Just as Brown could never be the Oscar-winning actor Blair was, so Miliband will never be the slick PR man that Cameron is.

Does anyone want him to be?

We can smell in a pub or a workplace when someone’s pretending to be what they’re not. So why do they bother in politics? We’d all rather have a geek with a mission to serve others than a phoney with a mission to serve themselves.

If Miliband can learn one thing from his retiring predecessor it’s this. The next time someone attacks your Frank Spencer-like social skills, say: “Yeah, I find it hard to get photographed eating a bacon butty without looking like a dickhead. How about you?”

Then maybe, when the country’s got over the shock of you sounding normal, they’ll listen to the important things you have to say.