For more than a decade, New Labour was Britain's defining political and economic project. Borrowing many of its cues from Thatcherism, New Labour took the Britain that Thatcher herself had created, and reoriented its place in the world in the party's redesigned image. As befitting a government in office at the start of a new millennium, New Labour drew upon the past to deliver a political vision for its future. At the heart of this vision, Gordon Brown was the centrifugal force. Tony Blair and New Labour are, of course, inextricably linked but it was Brown who remained central in the renewal, redemption and ultimately rejection of the party by the British people. As the New Labour story unfolded across almost two decades, virtually all of its main actors, including Blair himself, entered and departed the stage before the curtain finally fell on the ever-present Brown. Labour's last man standing, Brown saw his influence steadily increase within the party, across Whitehall and, as we shall see in this book, stretch out into the world. By the time Brown finally left office in May 2010, no other Labour politician had enjoyed such prolonged prominence and power in equal measure.

Global Statesman tells the story of how Gordon Brown reached the apex of political power in Britain – even prior to becoming prime minister – and how as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he leveraged his position to pursue a personal crusade against poverty both at home and abroad. Borrowing extensively from the model of political economy that he himself had crafted for Britain, Brown went on to become the chief architect behind the New Labour government's much vaunted commitment to ‘eliminate global poverty’ overseas. As Chancellor, Brown was aided to this end by his close political rival, Tony Blair. Yet certainly insofar as Brown was concerned, poverty was far more than just another sphere of policy. Poverty animated his political, economic, philosophical and theological vision, and addressing it was central to Brown's commitment to realising a more socially just and egalitarian world.