Gordon Brown was not exactly regarded as a pussycat before he made the jump up Downing Street into the hallowed sanctum of Number 10.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he
"recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
The Mail's political commentator Peter Oborne told the paper
Mr Brown has somewhat of a "reputation for hurling stuff about the place".
Mr Oborne, writing in the Spectator magazine, also revealed the Prime Minister's short fuse with secretaries.
"He is said to shout at them abusively. He is reported to have impatiently turfed one of the girls out of her chair and sat down to use the keyboard himself."
In another fit of temper, reported by the Mail on Sunday, Mr Brown was said to have upset his driver by picking up his phone and hurling it across the car.
His stock in Westminster now appears to be so low that stories about his childish tantrums are being circulated with glee.
When told of the HM Revenue & Customs data loss scandal last year,
the Prime Minister actually kicked a table so hard it toppled over, the Mail on Sunday reported.
Political blogs have also suggested that an argument between Mr Brown and Labour's new general secretary David Pitt-Watson last week became so heated "you could hear them through the walls".
The frustration at Labour's plummeting fortunes appear to be getting to other ministers as well.
Justice Minister Jack Straw, a Westminster stalwart and normally mild-mannered, was said to have come close to punching Schools Secretary Ed Balls.
Balls, once Brown's most trusted advisor, has been at the centre of growing rumours about a leadership challenge against him.
The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has now issued an extraordinary public denial that he is mounting any sort of secret leadership campaign.
The rage of Gordon Brown
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Originally Posted by Daovonnaex
ing stupid and has to retract it later.
