Gordon Brown under pressure to explain anti-bullying chiefs allegations

By Chris Irvine Published: 7:40AM GMT twenty-two February 2010

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Mrs Pratt, the owner of the National Bullying Hotline, claimed the gift had perceived "three or four" calls in new months from Downing Street staff.

She pronounced she had secretly oral to at slightest one of the callers, who complained of a "bullying culture" at Downing Street and of the "stress" it caused.

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She has shielded her preference to go open and denied that her vocalization out was politically motivated.

Dismissing claims that she had breached confidentiality, she told GMTV: ""Our impasse here and the regard here is not about the turn of calls or where they are entrance from but the actuality that Number 10 released a matter of rejection in resources where we would have approaching them to follow their own practices.""

The gift trainer pronounced she was in ""no doubt"" that the calls had come from Downing Street staff as against to being from antic callers.

She certified that she had perceived phone calls of await from Tory MPs but combined it was "irrelevant" in the context of her vocalization out.

When after asked by BBC Radio 4"s Today Programme if Mr Brown had been secretly endangered in bullying, she said: "Absolutely not, and nor have we pronounced that Gordon Brown is a bully. Our regard here is the open matter from series 10 of denial, rather than Gordon Brown, following the ACAS formula that he helped introduced, we would usually wish Gordon Brown and series 10 lead by example.

"We would have hoped that Gordon Brown pronounced he was seeking in to this, that due routine was being followed and that he takes these issues severely and that he would wish to inspire his staff who feel worried that they can come forward, that they do work in a protected and stress-free sourroundings and that they should feel gentle about entrance forward. We would wish Gordon Brown to follow the orthodox code, the ACAS formula that he himself introduced, rather than issue a matter of denial, and it is that matter of rejection that has endangered us."

Jacqui Smith, the former Home Secretary, pronounced she wrote to the National Bullying Helpline, expressing her "absolute awe that you have so comprehensively breached the joining done on your website to provide calls as trusted and to apply oneself the grace of those who make use of your service."

She wrote: "The open statements of your arch comparison manager about reception calls from members of the Prime Minister"s Office expostulate a manager and horses by your confidentiality and forthrightness policies.

"I have formerly referred to electorate confronting formidable bullying situations about your service. I will never do that again!"

Anne Snelgrove, the Labour MP for Swindon South, who is Mr Brown"s parliamentary aide, helped launch the gift but pronounced she after private her open endorsements after unwell to embrace answers from Mrs Pratt to concerns about the use lifted with her by voters.

"Christine has popped up out of the blue when all of this is function around Gordon," she said.

"She needs to denote that these questions unequivocally have come from staff at Number 10. If she is receiving phone calls at face worth afterwards she needs to check it out with the organization itself.

"Why is she going open with this rather than receiving it up secretly if these phone calls were genuine?"

Mrs Snelgrove combined that she had "not seen any of that poise in all the time I have been at Number 10 or an MP."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, called on Downing Street to transparent up the allegations.

"The allegations that youth staff, speechless staff, have been going to a inhabitant bullying hotline seems to me to be really important," he told Today.

"Bullying is wrong, it is all out of sequence in whatever travel of hold up you work, however critical you are.

"In politics, how you handle at the back of sealed doors - even the good sealed doors of No 10 - how you handle once the cameras are switched off, does kind of matter, so I do think this does need to be privileged up by No 10.

"We have usually had a week end where Gordon Brown has pronounced that he wants to broach integrity to everyone and right away he is confronting really critical allegations that he is not being satisfactory at all to the people operative closest to him."

Mrs Pratt"s involvement came after comparison ministers together with Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, attempted to plead allegations about Mr Brown"s poise and diagnosis of his staff in a new book.

The book, by domestic writer Andrew Rawnsley, referred to that the Prime Ministers flighty temper, had left No 10 polite servants and aides pang a enlightenment of fright and intimidation.

Lord Mandelson led the Downing Street try to withstand the allegations. He insisted that the Prime Minister was not a bully, and that he was usually "impatient" and "demanding" of his staff.