Gordon Brown has been accused of ‘lying’ by Alistair Darling in a vicious feud that threatens to wreck the Government’s attempt to combat the recession.
The Chancellor has enraged the Prime Minister by refusing point-blank to back Mr Brown’s claim that his multi-billion-pound bailout of the banks has ‘saved 500,000 jobs’.
In an astonishing show of defiance, Mr Darling argued the claim cannot be substantiated and has told the PM to stop repeating it.
The row is the latest sign of a dramatic collapse in confidence in Mr Brown at all levels of the Government’s ranks. His authority suffered a fresh series of blows yesterday as:
- Justice Secretary Jack Straw effectively accused Mr Brown of lying about the Lockerbie bomber row.
- Senior Labour aides said ‘drift and indecision’ inside No10 was compounded by the PM’s ‘agitated state of mind’.
- Labour MPs threatened to mount a new bid to topple him when they return to Parliament next month.
Mr Brown and Mr Darling put on a fleeting public show of unity at the G20 finance meeting in London yesterday, but insiders say that behind closed doors they are barely on speaking terms.
Downing Street sources confirmed yesterday that the Prime Minister had caved in to the Chancellor and would abandon his plan to deny Labour will have to cut spending if it wins the General Election.
The Mail on Sunday has also learned that Mr Darling won a second victory by refusing to follow Mr Brown’s claim over the number of jobs saved by Labour’s anti-recession package.
Under heavy pressure from Mr Brown, Mr Darling used the 500,000 claim in his April Budget. But after being told it was based on ‘flimsy evidence’ he refused to repeat it - even though Mr Brown keeps on doing so.
As recently as July 22, the Prime Minister told a Downing Street Press conference: ‘If we had not intervened and acted decisively at least a further 500,000 jobs would have been lost.’
Mr Darling is instead making the much more vague assertion that the Government’s measures have saved ‘up to 500,000 jobs’.
The freeze in relations between the two men follows the Prime Minister’s disastrous attempt in June to sack Mr Darling and install Education Secretary Ed Balls as Chancellor. He was forced to scrap the plan at the last minute by a Cabinet uprising.
A Treasury source said: ‘The PM is like a drowning man who will clutch at anything to save his skin. No10 is always asking us to support publicity stunts or launch bogus attacks on the Tories based on highly questionable figures. Most of them are pointless.
‘Alistair is not prepared to go along with it. He will do what is right for the country and wherever possible what is right for Labour. He is not going to cut corners because No10 is in a panic.’
Mr Straw added to Labour woes by admitting for the first time that oil and trade were a key part of the Government’s decision to include Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi in a prison transfer deal with Libya.
Asked whether trade and oil firm BP were factors, Mr Straw declared: ‘Yes, (it was) a very big part of that. I’m unapologetic about that... Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade... and subsequently there was the BP deal.’ His statement flatly contradicts Mr Brown’s claim that there had been ‘no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no oil deal’.
The provocative actions of Mr Darling and Mr Straw are a further indication that, as the prospect of Election defeat looms closer, senior Labour figures are looking to protect their own reputations rather than Mr Brown’s.
The growing Cabinet dissent is mirrored inside No10 where there are frequent reports of shouting matches involving the Prime Minister and his advisers.
‘The atmosphere is so bad inside Downing Street that normally sane people start to lose control,’ said one official. ‘Brown is more agitated than ever. He takes it out on them and they take it out on us.’
Meanwhile, the issue of Mr Brown’s leadership yet again may be raised at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party group of backbenchers in October.
'We are facing a landslide defeat with him at the helm, we can’t pretend it isn’t happening,’ said one MP. ‘Getting rid of Gordon is the one thing that could scare the Tories.’
Explore more:
- People:
- Gordon Brown,
- Ed Balls,
- Alistair Darling,
- Jack Straw
- Places:
- London,
- Libya
- Organisations:
- Labour Party
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211448/Brown-claim-saved-500-000-jobs-lie-says-Darling.html#ixzz0QJCez6Oa
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