James Gordon Brown HonFRSE is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Blair government from 1997 to 2007. Brown was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2015, first for Dunfermline East and later for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. He is the most recent Labour politician and most recent Scottish politician to hold the office of Prime Minister.
A doctoral graduate, Brown read history at the University of Edinburgh, where he was elected Rector in 1972. He spent his early career working as both a lecturer at a further education college and a television journalist. He entered the British House of Commons in 1983 as the MP for Dunfermline East. He joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade, and was later promoted to become Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1992. After Labour's victory in 1997, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, becoming the longest-serving holder of that office in modern history.