Harper’s former adviser to release book in early May Add to ... [View all]

Last edited Mon May 5, 2014, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is reputed to be a man with a penchant for control, a leader with a grip on the Conservative communications machine.

So when one of his former advisers several years ago wrote an insider book called Harper’s Team, the Prime Minister’s Office, the author says, asked him not to publish it.

That writer, Tom Flanagan, now is back with a forthcoming book, Persona Non Grata: The Death of Free Speech in the Internet Age, that speaks of Mr. Harper in “Nixonian” terms, as a man who “believes in playing politics right up to the edge of the rules, which inevitably means some team members will step across ethical or legal lines in their desire to win for the Boss.”

“He can be suspicious, secretive, and vindictive, prone to sudden eruptions of white-hot rage over meaningless trivia, at other times falling into week-long depressions in which he is incapable of making decisions,” Mr. Flanagan writes. “I feared, as I still do, that he might some day bring himself down Nixon-style by pushing too hard against the network of rules constraining authority in a constitutional government.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pm-harpers-former-adviser-to-release-book-in-early-may/article17911256/


Added Mon, May 5, 2014.
The link is to Power n Politics intervrw with Flanagan today. It appears to have run more than 15 minutes.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2454578882/