Gordon Brown "very upset" about claims he is a bully, says Ed Balls Politics

Gordon and Sarah Brown. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Gordon Brown was "very upset" about claims that he was a bully, his close fan Ed Balls pronounced today.

The children"s cupboard part of pronounced he discussed the bullying row with the budding apportion yesterday and Brown felt "hurt" by the claims that had been done in a book by the Observer publisher Andrew Rawnsley.

Earlier today, Sarah Brown intervened in the debate about the impression of her husband, dogmatic that he was a "strong, industrious and decent man".

The counterclaim of Brown came as a Guardian/ICM check showed the Conservative lead over Labour had been cut to usually 7 points, with the bullying row display no distinct outcome on the ratings.

Balls, a long-time crony of the budding minister"s, rallied to his counterclaim on BBC Radio 4"s Today programme.

The children"s cupboard part of said: "I have well well known Gordon Brown for twenty years. At no point has it ever occurred to me that Gordon Brown is, or has ever been, a bully.

"I think it"s something that privately he feels really dissapoint about since he knows there"s no law in these allegations."

Balls pronounced that he did not think the allegations would repairs Brown politically since the open could accept that he was "tough", but not a bully. "He"s ardent and he"s a personality and he"s got that sort of strength of impression and drive. That"s what you wish in a leader," Balls said.

"If you pronounced to the open "What do you think of Gordon Brown?", they would contend he is tough, they would infrequently be undone by the approach he speaks on television. I have never listened a singular basic contend Gordon Brown is a bully."

Sarah Brown interviewed on GMTV

This sunrise the budding minister"s mother shielded him in an speak with GMTV. "Gordon"s the man that I know and the man that I love," she said.

"People have listened me speak about him and they probably know all that I would have to contend about him. I know him as a strong, hard-working, decent man and he isn"t anything else. What you see is what you get with him."

Lord Sugar, the Apprentice star who was done a counterpart and allocated craving tsar by the budding minister, additionally shielded Brown this morning.

"When you cruise the pressures that the budding apportion is underneath ... it is extraordinary how he has managed to constrain himself on so most occasions," Sugar told GMTV.

"Do you wish a little pliable sort of chairman who is only not going to have any suggestion about them or do you wish someone who has got a bit of glow in their belly, who will react, who will get a bit romantic sometimes? That is not bullying as far as I am concerned."

Balls, Sugar and Mrs Brown done their comments after the cupboard secretary, Sir Gus O"Donnell, denied that he had ever warned Brown about working in a bullying or intimidatory manner.

And, in his initial remarks since the allegations broke, Brown told the Economist: "The cupboard cupboard part of has done it transparent that he"s had no inquiries, there"s been no reprimand, there"s been no in isolation summary to me …[The] story is utterly wrong."

Yesterday Lord Mandelson, the commercial operation secretary, went on the descent by claiming the Tories were at the back of the attempts to allegation the PM. He indicted Conservative press officers of using reporters towards the National Bullying Helpline owner Christine Pratt in the arrogance that she had "some fuel to throw on this fire".

The Tories denied this, observant Mandelson was perplexing to "smear" Pratt by poorly portraying her as a domestic stooge.

John Prescott, the former emissary budding minister, went further, accusing David Cameron of contracting "the greatest brag in the world" as his communications director: Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World.

The rejection by O"Donnell is the third and broadest he has since since Rawnsley, the Observer"s arch domestic commentator, wrote that the cupboard cupboard part of had been so uneasy by Brown"s intimidatory poise towards staff that he gave him "a pep talk" and told him "this is no approach to get things done".

Rawnsley, in his book The End of the Party, that the Observer is serialising, asserts that O"Donnell, after creation inquiries about reports that staff in Downing Street had been intimidated, took it on himself to "try to ease down fearful avocation clerks, really bad treated with colour phone operators and alternative painful staff by revelation them: "Don"t take it personally.""

Brown"s spokesman, vocalization on seductiveness of the cupboard secretary, pronounced O"Donnell longed for it well well known that he had "never lifted concerns with the budding apportion about working in a bullying or an intimidatory demeanour in propinquity to No 10 staff, let alone since him any sort of written warning". The budding minister"s orator did contend O"Donnell had "spoken to the budding apportion about how the polite use could most appropriate await the government".

O"Donnell has taken dual days to have this extended denial, but even right away his phrasing is not indispensably all at contingency with Rawnsley"s account.

Rawnsley hinted at the strength of his sourcing by essay on Twitter that his source "could not be better". Sir Jeremy Heywood, Downing Street"s permanent secretary, wrote to staff observant he was certain No 10 had an open culture.

The Conservatives and the Lib Dems have called for an exploration in to the allegations, but O"Donnell ruled out an exploration by Sir Philip Mawer, the polite menial obliged for the ministerial code.

David Cameron described the part as "another indecorous disaster at the fag-end of a supervision that is sleepy and discredited".

O"Donnell might have to difficult out a barbecuing from a cross-party organisation of MPs on Wednesday if he is to say that there is zero to investigate.

The cupboard cupboard part of is due to crop up in front of the probity name cupboard and Conservative part of Andrew Tyrie told the Guardian that if O"Donnell had not simplified his on all sides prior to the hearing, he was deliberation severe him on the issue.

Tyrie said: "I think it is critical and in the open seductiveness that the cupboard cupboard part of should be since the event to explain what, if any, purpose he has played in this and, if I"m available by the chairman, I will [ask]."

This was upheld by an additional MP on the committee, Liberal Democrat David Heath, who pronounced O"Donnell should recollect his first faithfulness was to the polite servants in Downing Street rather than the domestic operation using No 10. Last night the head of the kinship representing comparison Whitehall polite servants called for a cross-party move to clamp down on bullying poise in government.