HE was likened first to Stalin, then to Mr Bean, but now Gordon Brown’s leadership style has been depicted as a throwback to the oligarchy of the Pitt “dynasty” of the 18th century.

A leading academic has claimed that Brown’s government is a “family affair” that draws from a narrower pool of talent even than that of Tony Blair. According to David Runciman, a politics lecturer and fellow of Cambridge University, Brown, who promised to lead a “government of all the talents”, has become dependent on a tiny coterie of supporters.

Even the ties between the members of the opposing front benches in the Commons have tightened, with an elite group of Labour and Conservative politicians coming from almost identical educational backgrounds.

“The narrowing of the political class has an almost 18th-century feel to it, as the circle from which the political elite is drawn becomes ever smaller,” Runciman has written in the London Review of Books.

Runciman claims Brown is particularly dependent on three confidants – Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander. Each has worked for him since his twenties and each has a sibling or spouse in the cabinet or the upper echelons of the Labour party.

Balls, the secretary of state for children, is married to Yvette Cooper, the housing minister; Miliband, minister for the Cabinet Office, is the brother of David Miliband, the foreign secretary; and Alexander, the international development secretary, is the brother of Wendy, leader of the Labour party in Scotland.

In addition, Runciman said, the two Milibands, Balls, Cooper, Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, James Purnell, the culture secretary, and David Cameron, the Tory leader, all took degrees in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Oxford University at about the same time. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, also took a PPE degree shortly before them.

“The Brown government is a family affair,” wrote Runciman, “and it marks a shift to ever more intimate political relationships at the centre of power, even compared with the days when Tony Blair was ruling the country with the aid of his former pupil master [the former lord chancellor Derry Irvine] and his former flat-mate [Irvine’s successor, Lord Falconer] (and perhaps his wife as well).”

Runciman added this weekend: “Before, I thought current British politics was broadly Victorian, but it is like the world of the Pitts.”

The Pitt family provided two prime ministers. William Pitt, a Whig, was educated at Eton and Oxford. He served as war minister (1756-61) during the seven years’ war, in effect running the country, and was prime minister in 1766-68. His administration ended after he had a mental breakdown, but his son William, who first expressed his parliamentary ambitions at the age of seven, went on to eclipse his father’s career.

Pitt the Younger was prime minister from 1783 to 1801 and again from 1804 to the beginning of 1806. Never married and judged to be largely indifferent to women, he gained his seat in parliament aged 21. When Pitt entered the Commons, Edmund Burke said: “He’s not a chip off the old block - it’s the old block itself.”

Other families too have maintained political involvement over a period of generations - led by the Cecils’ five centuries of influence. William Cecil served as chief adviser to Elizabeth I for 40 years until he died in 1598. His son Robert, the first Earl of Salisbury, was first minister to James I. Five generations later James Cecil was George III’s lord chamberlain in the 18th century.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the Marquess of Salisbury, served three terms as a Conservative prime minister under Queen Victoria. He was succeeded as prime minister in 1902 by his nephew Arthur Balfour. The most recent Cecil in politics is Viscount Cranborne, the Conservative former leader of the House of the Lords.

The Benn family has been influen-tial in government for more than a century. And Joseph Chamberlain MP had two sons - Neville, who became prime minister in the 1930s, and Austen, his half-brother, who was foreign secretary under Stanley Baldwin.

Lord Randolph Churchill, chancellor of the exchequer at the end of the 19th century, sired Sir Winston Churchill, whose son and two grandsons all became MPs.

In America the political dynasties include the sprawling Kennedy clan and the relatives of Samuel Adams, who signed the American declaration of independence. Two of his cousins served as president.

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of politics and government at Oxford, challenged Runciman’s analysis. “This isn’t a new phenomenon,” he said. You expect people who grow up in ‘politically active’ families to be more likely to become politicians.

“It was there in Macmillan’s government - there were a number of personal relations of his and a large number . . . from Eton. It’s true that a lot of them [Brown’s colleagues] have gone to Oxford but that was [also] true of Wilson’s government and Macmillan’s government.”

However, Runciman discounted the comparison. “Our government contains a small group, some of whom are related to each other, who have known each other since their youth,” he said. “I’m not aware of siblings being in Macmillan or Wilson’s cabinets.”

Dynastic powers

The Pitt clique
Pitt the Younger followed his father to the top of politics. At Cambridge he was friends with the Duke of Rutland, who was instrumental in his election to parliament at 21. Pitt’s cousin Lord Grenville, who served as his home secretary, was the husband of another Pitt relative. Grenville, whose father was also a former premier, later became prime minister, after Pitt’s death.

The Benn dynasty
Sir John Benn was a Progressive MP; his son William Wedgwood Benn was secretary of state for India under Ramsay MacDonald. His son Tony Benn served in the Wilson and Callaghan cabinets. Tony’s son Hilary is now environment secretary in Brown’s cabinet. Hilary’s niece Emily, 18, is a prospective Labour candidate.

The Brown cabal
Three figures, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander, have long been the prime minister’s most trusted advisers, and each has a close relative with a prominent role in government. Balls and the Milibands studied PPE at Oxford University at about the same time as Jacqui Smith, Ruth Kelly and even David Cameron.

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