He's famously been compared to Stalin, Mr Bean, even Macavity the cat. But Gordon Brown has other ideas: he's happier thinking of himself as Heathcliff.
Today's papers have predictable fun with the PM's admission in a New Statesman interview that it would be "absolutely correct" to liken him to the anti-hero of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
The consensus, however, is that Brown might want to re-read the book. As Andrew McCarthy of the Brontë Parsonage Museum tells the Telegraph:
Heathcliff is a man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, possibly murder, and digging up his dead lover ... Is this really a good role model for a prime minister?
The Independent takes a similar line, saying Heathcliff "may have been impersonated on screen by beetle-browed hunks from Laurence Olivier to Ralph Fiennes, but he's still a 24-carat bastard".
Vince Cable of the Lib Dems - who famously described Brown's progress "from Stalin to Mr Bean" - has perhaps the best line, reprinted in many papers:
Healthcliff] ended his life a broken and tormented man haunted by a ghost. Tony Blair perhaps?
Over on the Telegraph website's Your View section - usually not a place for the faint-hearted - they're on surprisingly witty form when asked for a better comparison. Basil Fawlty, says one poster. Another goes for Columbus:
He didn't know where he was going when he set off, he didn't know where he was when he got there and he didn't know where he had been when he got back.
Any better ideas?
One more note: while Brown is happy to be likened to Heathcliff, Marks and Spencer boss Stuart Rose is clearly less keen on comparisons with the PM, as he told shareholders yesterday:
I have been called the Robert Mugabe of retail and a kitten-strangler. I have been accused of having the hide of an armadillo and being arrogant, and today I have been accused of being Gordon Brown. This is a flurry of insults.
This is an extended extract from The Wrap, theguardian.com's daily round up of the news.
