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When Blair felt like a “bullied wife” out of london

When Gordon Brown, finally, became Prime Minister four months ago after a ten-year-long intense power struggle with Tony Blair it was presented as a “smooth and orderly transition” in contrast to the history of shambolic leadership changes in the Conservative Party.

As “spins” go, this was hard to beat even by New Labour’s standards. A divided party, nearly destroyed by a decade of Blair-Brown feuding, was pretending to act like a big happy family with Mr. Blair’s forced departure choreographed as a happy parting complete with standing ovation, and all that.

Both camps oozed with displays of mutual admiration — Mr. Blair saying he and “Gordon” had been friends ever since he remembered and would continue to be chums until their dying days; Mr. Brown hailing “Tony” — the man he was so impatient to replace — as one of the “best” and most “successful” Labour Prime Ministers (if so, why was he eased out?).

Only Cherie Blair, the former Prime Minister’s brutally blunt wife, was caught off-message when a television reporter overheard her saying “lies,” as Mr. Brown showered praise on her husband. But when her comment sparked a row and threatened to spoil the party, she was forced to deny it. Nobody of course bought the denial. How accurately her off-camera remark reflected the state of Blair-Brown relations is now confirmed in a new book by political historian and Mr. Blair’s biographer Anthony Seldon.

Dr. Seldon, who is said to have had unprecedented access to Mr. Blair’s inner circle and spoken to leading Brown loyalists, reveals that tensions between the two camps were far more serious than even the normally acute Downing Street watchers suspected at the time.

The book Blair Unbound: The Biography Part II, extracts from which have been published in the Mail on Sunday, claims that Mr. Blair was so angry at what he regarded as attempts by Brown allies to destabilise him that at one stage he contemplated sacking Mr. Brown from the Cabinet. “I’m going to take no more ... (expletive deleted) from over the road, I’m going to do it,” he reportedly told his aides after a particularly angry row with Mr. Brown before the May 25 general elections.

On another occasion, after a heated argument with Mr. Brown’s close aide Ed Balls, who is now a Cabinet minister, Mr. Blair retorted: “I feel like an abused and bullied wife.”

Dr. Seldon claims that Mr. Blair had “personal concerns” about Mr. Brown. “He was worried about Gordon’s character and personality, the dark side of his nature, his paranoia and his inability to collaborate,” he writes drawing a picture of a Prime Minister struggling to govern in the face of debilitating tensions at the heart of the government.

The mood of gloom and suspicion in Downing Street was matched by conspiracy theories in the rival camp as Mr. Brown suspected a plot against him. He is said to have hit the roof when Mr. Blair made Alan Milburn, a loyalist and former Cabinet Minister, in charge of the 2005 election campaign.

“Is it about cooking the manifesto against me?” an angry Mr. Brown reportedly demanded to know from Mr. Blair.

The book also claims that Mr. Brown threatened Mr. Blair over the cash-for-honours scandal involving allegations that the then Prime Minister and his close allies raised millions of pounds in secret loans from rich businessmen to fund the elections, promising them peerages in return.

It is alleged that Mr. Brown might have been behind the Labour Party treasurer Jack Dromey’s decision to complain publicly that the loans were raised behind his back even though, as treasurer, he should have been informed. His claim fuelled accusations of a conspiracy involving Mr. Blair, his friends and close aides. Mr. Blair was questioned by the police twice (the only serving British Prime Minister in recent history to be questioned in a criminal investigation) and his personal fundraiser Lord Levy was arrested. Although, eventually, the case collapsed the allegations of “selling” peerages seriously damaged Mr. Blair’s premiership.

Dr. Seldon also reveals tensions within the Brown camp as his close allies felt frustrated that Mr. Brown appeared to be dithering over challenging Mr. Blair’s leadership. Apparently, they wanted him to use the Labour Party’s poor showing in the 2006 local elections to trigger a “coup” against Mr. Blair and when he hesitated Mr. Balls reportedly shouted at him: “You bottled it.” Mr. Balls emerges as the most influential and assertive figure in the Brown inner circle.

“His increasingly assertive role at the Treasury struck some as echoing the 1963 film The Servant, in which the butler, played by Dirk Bogarde, progressively takes over as the dominant force from the owner of the house, James Fox,” Dr. Seldon remarks.

The portrayal of Mr. Brown as lacking in decisiveness and wavering at crucial moments has touched a raw nerve among his allies still reeling from the embarrassing fiasco over the snap-election-that-was not. (Remember Mr. Brown was accused of “bottling it” when, after allowing the speculation about a November election to sweep the nation, he called them off without any explanation?) They have denounced Dr. Seldon’s effort as a hatchet job for Blairites to undermine the Brown government. A case of Banquo’s ghost stalking Macbeth?

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