Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s former spin doctor, discloses in a new book that his boss questioned whether Mr Brown “had it in him” to become Labour leader and believed that Mr Brown preferred “wanting” the role to actually doing it. Mr Brown, in turn, accused Mr Blair of “breaking his promise” not to stand against him in the Labour leadership election that followed John Smith’s death in 1994, and “could not get over” what he regarded as a betrayal. The result was a simmering resentment that exploded into foul-mouthed shouting matches which left both men with “purple faces”, says Mr Campbell. He portrays Mr Brown as a brooding presence who would go “absolutely berserk” if he did not get what he wanted and told colleagues that Mr Blair “could not be trusted at all”. Meanwhile Ed Balls, the current Labour leadership candidate, is described as an “irritating and rude” man who “drivelled on endlessly” and was not regarded as a “grown-up” by Mr Blair. Lord Mandelson is said to have had such a “venomous” relationship with Mr Brown that Mr Blair feared the two men were “trying to destroy each other”. The highly revealing details of Labour’s rise to power, which Mr Campbell omitted from a condensed version of his memoirs in 2007, are contained in the first volume of his unexpurgated diaries, which will be published next week. Mr Campbell recalls a conversation with Mr Blair in December 1995 in which Mr Blair confided his innermost thoughts about his future Chancellor. Mr Blair decided his colleague had missed his chance to lead the party when he failed to challenge John Smith for the job in 1992, according to the former Downing Street communications chief. “I can remember the moment when in the back of my mind I felt he [Mr Brown] would not be leader,” he quotes Mr Blair as saying. “It was after the general election when Neil [Kinnock] had stepped down and GB would not even contemplate challenging John Smith. “I felt he could have won … and something in me began to wonder if he really had it in him; whether maybe it was something he preferred to want, rather than to be.” Mr Brown, meanwhile, had an entirely different take on Mr Blair’s successful 1994 leadership bid, which lay at the heart of the two men’s volatile relationship. On March 12, 1997, weeks before Labour swept to power, Mr Blair told Mr Campbell that “GB had finally admitted that the real problem was his feeling that TB broke his promise over the leadership. He had always assumed that he would take over”. Two days later, Mr Brown “admitted he could not get over TB being leader”. Mr Blair would respond by telling Mr Brown to “stop brooding and get on with it”. Mr Campbell described one row between the two men in January 1997, when Mr Blair and Mr Brown were arguing over their taxation policy, which was overheard by Mr Blair’s personal assistant, Kate Garvey. “[She] said it was terrifying. She was at her desk and they were shouting so loud at each other she could hear virtually every word. Both had purple faces when they left. She said it had never been so bad.” Later the same week, Mr Blair suggested that Derry [later Lord] Irvine, might have an advisory role on economic policy, to which Mr Brown replied: “I’m not going to be told by some ------- lawyer what to do.” John Prescott, says Mr Campbell, became “sick of” Mr Brown’s refusal to consult with his colleagues, the future home secretary Charles Clarke was worried that Mr Brown “could actually lose us the election” in 1997 and Mr Campbell likens him to “a mullah, surrounded by his disciples”. At times, Mr Blair “exploded” with anger at Mr Brown’s attitude. On a trip to Australia in 1995, Mr Blair, who was waiting to meet the then Australian premier, Paul Keating, shouted four-letter expletives at his colleague who was “whingeing” on the phone about Lord Mandelson. The diary is full of withering comments about Mr Balls, who was an adviser to Mr Brown at the time. The former schools secretary obtained the backing yesterday of the 33 Labour MPs he requires to enter the party’s leadership ballot. Mr Campbell dismisses Mr Balls’s “awful” strategy papers, adding that he spoke “drivel” in meetings.Tony Blair's doubts over Gordon Brown
as a leader revealed by Alastair Campbell
Their dysfunctional relationship was an open secret
during 13 years of government.
But only now is the full extent of the animosity
between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
being made public.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
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