Gordon explains why there's no Mrs Brown

SUE Lawley gets extraordinarily personal with Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown MP on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs this morning.

Ms Lawley points out that he is always asked about women and marriage and wonders aloud "Does that irritate you?"

"Not at all," he replies, having already answered the question once. "It just hasn't happened, and it's one of the things that I suppose I'm surprised hasn't happened, but it hasn't."

Clearly not satisfied with this response, Ms Lawley argues that it would probably be less of an issue if he had been married three times. "People don't remark on that, but they do remark on non-marriage."

Mr Brown agrees that they do, adding: "I've got some very good friends. But it just hasn't happened. It's one of the things that may happen."

Ms Lawley still refuses to drop the subject, persisting: "Do you understand people's curiosity? It is something that middle-aged men and women have to put up with. People want to know whether you're gay or whether there's some flaw in your personality that you haven't made a relationship . . ."

At this point Mr Brown snaps back: "Look I don't have to answer these questions." His interviewer goes doggedly on: "But do you perhaps accept that as a public person it's a price you have to pay?"

The Shadow Chancellor denies he is a "loner" and insists: "I'm not married. It just hasn't happened. I hope it does. It may yet. It probably will do. Once you get into parliament, and you're not married by the time you get there, you're in a situation where you're living in two places . . . things become more difficult. You don't hear much about MPs getting married - but you do hear a lot about them getting divorced."

In fact, Mr Brown had an unpublicised dinner date with glamorous broadcaster Anna Ford on the night he recorded the Desert Island Discs programme 10 days ago, and, in the jargon of the tabloids, his name has also been linked romantically with several other women in public life.

He denies living in "a shambolic mess", admitting: "It may not be as tidy as it should be sometimes. It's my office, actually, not anything else.

"I was burgled once and the policeman said my study had been absolutely ransacked. I had to tell him that the thieves hadn't been in the study. I do leave lots of papers around because I'm working on all sorts of different things at once."

Mr Brown, aged 45, chooses a number of Sixties records to take with him to the desert island, some classical music and some songs redolent of his native Scotland. He also selects the gaelic version of the 23rd Psalm which was sung at John Smith's funeral.

His luxury object is a tennis serving machine. "I think I could probably construct a golf course for myself on the island. But the one thing I couldn't have is a tennis partner. So I think I'd have a tennis serving machine and an endless supply of tennis balls plus a racquet.

"That would be a great assistance in improving my serve and improving my game. My serve's not bad, but my returns are pretty poor, so that would be pretty helpful. And if I got really desperate, I could send some of the balls out to sea with messages engraved on them."