GORDON BROWN’S government is more “chaotic” than many administrations in the developing world, according to one of his Foreign Office ministers.

Lord Malloch-Brown, who quits his ministerial post this month, told colleagues he had seen better “strategic thinking” in Latin America and southeast Asia than at No 10.

Malloch-Brown, who worked as a political consultant and United Nations deputy secretary-general before he was offered a peerage and ministerial job by Brown, told colleagues he found Westminster politics “disappointingly shortsighted”.

It has also emerged that the minister, who was a vocal critic of the Iraq war until he joined the government, “threw a wobbly” when he learnt the prime minister wanted to hold the official inquiry into the conflict in secret.

Malloch-Brown announced last week he was planning to quit the government for “personal and family reasons”.

The 55-year-old, who moved from New York to the UK when he was made a minister two years ago, had struggled to balance his work and family life. “I have always said that I would not do this job forever,” he said last week.

However, according to colleagues, Malloch-Brown had become increasingly frustrated with ministerial life. “Mark said that the goldfish bowl nature of Westminster and the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle meant there wasa lack of strategic thinking in British politics – on both sides of the political divide,” one colleague said.

“Mark had never worked in Whitehall before, and it is fair to say he was shocked at how everything was cobbled together at the last minute and no one took the time to plan ahead. It was not uniquely a problem with Brown, but a feature of the British political culture.”

During the 1980s Malloch-Brown worked as consultant for the Sawyer Miller Group,a US firm that advised politicians fighting elections in the developing world. He worked on campaigns in the Philippines, helping Corazon Aqui-no defeat the Ferdinand Mar-cos dictatorship, and the opposition in Chile which overthrew the Pinochet regime.

“Mark felt there was a contrast between the professionalism and long-term planning that happened in the countries where he acted as a consultant and the chaotic nature of Whitehall,” said the colleague.

His private remarks will strike a chord with many others working in the Brown government who feel frustrated atthe prime minister’s failure to articulate simple, clear and plausible “narratives”.

Behind the scenes Malloch-Brown tried to lobby Brown to uphold his promise to hold a “comprehensive” inquiry into the Iraq war. However, when last month Brown announced the investigation was to be carried out in secret, Malloch-Brown was furious.

“Mark was incandescent. This was not what why he signed up to being a minister,” said a colleague.

“He tried to contact the prime minister, but he was away travelling. In the end he spoke to Gus O’Donnell [the cabinet secretary] and told him what he thought.”

Within days of the prime minister’s original statement, the government executed a U-turn and said that some hearings would after all be held in public.

“Mark was satisfied with the final outcome,” said a colleague. “But I think the incident left a sour taste.”

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