Brown's sense of humour floors audience at Delhi University

NEW DELHI: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's sense of humour, including jibes at politicians, was an instant hit at a gathering of leading intellectuals at Delhi University on Monday as he had the people there in splits.
    
Brown, who was conferred an honorary degree by the Delhi University, interspersed his acceptance speech with funny asides and anecdotes.
    
Noting that he was a lecturer at Glasgow University before he "descended into politics", Brown said the varsity stood for qualities like objectivity, rationality, impartiality and honest pursuit of truth.
    
Immediately thereafter, he took a dig at politicians saying these were all qualities "that you have to leave behind
when you go into politics", causing the large convention hall at the Old Vice Regal Lodge at the University to burst into laughter.
    
He also narrated a funny incident involving former US President Ronald Reagan and the then Swedish Premier Olaf Palme.
    
"President Reagan did not know what to make of the Social Democratic Prime Minister of Sweden," he said.
    
Reagan, Brown said, asked his officials whether Palme was communist, getting the reply that he was actually "anti-communist".
    
"And to this Mr Reagan said, I don't care what kind of communist he is," Brown said.

The British Prime Minister narrated this story as he wanted to stress on what Palme told Reagan in their meeting in reply to a question from the US President on what he believed in.
    
Palme told Reagan he believed every person should get a chance to realise his or her potential.