History > 2006 > UK > Politics > Prime Minister (III)

Dave Brown

The Independent        9.9.2006

L to R:

Prime Minister Tony Blair,

Chancellor Gordon Brown.

1.30pm

Prescott to quit

as deputy prime minister

Thursday September 28, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

John Prescott announced today that he would quit as deputy prime minister before next year's Labour conference.
In a speech at the close of the party's Manchester conference, Mr Prescott told delegates: "This will be my last conference as your deputy leader.

"Thank you for electing me and thank you for all the support over the last 12 years."

It's expected that he will quit at the same time that Tony Blair stands down as prime minister.

Mr Prescott also apologised for letting the party down following the revelation of his affair earlier this year, saying: "I know in the last year, I let myself down, I let you down.

"So, conference, I just want to say sorry."

Mr Prescott said: "I've been absolutely privileged to attend this conference for over 40 years.

"I am honoured to have served as Tony's deputy prime minister and just as honoured to serve as your deputy leader."

Confirming his decision, he told delegates: "I've always said I would inform you, the party, first about my intentions, not the press."

He was given a standing ovation by delegates at the start and end of his barnstorming end-of-conference speech.

Mr Prescott coupled his announcement with a warning about disunity and appealed for an "orderly" transition in electing a new leader and deputy leader.

He dubbed talk of Labour benefiting from a period in opposition as "dangerous and foolish nonsense".

    Prescott to quit as deputy prime minister, G, 28.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1883206,00.html

Blair's long goodbye

PM praises Brown as 'remarkable man'
but aims to stay on for nine more months
after Labour accords him rapturous reception

Published: 27 September 2006
The Times
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Tony Blair won a rapturous response from the Labour Party faithful with an inspired farewell address that he hopes will enable him to remain in Downing Street for another nine months.

The Prime Minister began his intended "long goodbye" by warning Labour that it would lose power unless it kept up the pace of his reform agenda.

In his 13th and final speech to Labour's annual conference as party leader, the Prime Minister fired a powerful parting shot, urging his party not to retreat to the "comfort zone" which consigned it to 18 years of opposition before 1997.

Mr Blair hopes the enthusiastic response he won from emotional Labour delegates will give him the breathing space to remain in power until next July.

It is believed that he intends to delay a six-week Labour leadership contest until after the May elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and English councils, with his successor being installed in July. To answer charges that the Government will be paralysed until he departs, Downing Street has drawn up a list of 39 issues in Mr Blair's in-tray on which he will receive regular reports.

He will make "security" the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech in November, with new laws on migration, organised crime and antisocial behaviour. He will also make the Middle East peace process a personal priority.

But Mr Blair's apparent desire to hang on for another nine months will worry some Labour MPs, including supporters of Gordon Brown, who want a new leader in place before the May elections. Mr Brown does not want to take over just before MPs - and many voters - start their summer holidays, which might limit a "bounce" in the polls.

The Prime Minister's preferred timetable will also fuel suspicions among Mr Brown's supporters that Mr Blair intends to play a long game to allow a cabinet-level challenger to emerge to take on the Chancellor amid growing doubts among Labour MPs that Mr Brown could beat David Cameron at the general election.

In yesterday's speech to the Manchester conference, Mr Blair praised Mr Brown but stopped short of endorsing him as his successor or repeating the public handshake with him after the Chancellor's address on Monday.

The Prime Minister sought to move on from the alleged coup by Brown supporters three weeks ago. "I know New Labour would never have happened and three election victories would never have been secured, without Gordon Brown. He is a remarkable man. A remarkable servant to this country,' he said.

A conciliatory and witty speech was written largely by Mr Blair himself rather than his usual team of speechwriters. He defused with humour the row over the alleged outburst by his wife Cherie on Monday that Mr Brown told a lie when he said it was a privilege to work with the Prime Minister. "At least I do not have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door" he quipped.

Mr Blair mounted a passionate defence of his Government's record since 1997 but offered no concessions to critics of his stance on Iraq and Lebanon.

His main message to his party was that his reform programme must continue after he stands down to meet the new challenges facing Britain. "If we fail, and without change we will, then believe me: change will still be done; but in a regressive way by the Conservative Party."

But he accepted that it was right for him to stand down and told his party its future was in its own hands although he would be watching from the sidelines.

"The truth is, you can't go on for ever. That's why it is right that this is my last conference as leader.Of course, it's hard to let go. But it is also right to let go. For the country, and for you, the party."

He promised to see through planned changes but declined to spell out his departure timetable, as critics had hoped. His aim, he said, was to build "a unified party with a strong platform for the only legacy that has ever mattered to me - a fourth-term election victory that allows us to keep changing Britain for the better".

Mr Blair declared: "I love this party. There's only one tradition I hated - losing," he said. "I don't want to be the Labour leader who won three successive elections. I want to be the first Labour leader to win three elections.

"So: you take my advice, you don't take it. Your choice. Whatever you do, I'm always with you. Head and heart: You are the future now, so make the most of it."

Despite the ecstatic response and a standing ovation lasting more than seven minutes, Mr Blair may come under renewed pressure to quit sooner rather than later when MPs return from their summer recess next month. John McDonnell, a left-wing MP who will oppose Mr Brown for the leadership, said: "At some point he is going to have to give us more of an indication of the timescale of when he's going. But let's hope that's coming in the next few weeks."

But even some hardened critics admitted he had produced a masterly performance in his farewell speech to the conference.

Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Amicus union, said: "The audience loved it and if there was anyone in any doubt about voting Labour they may have been swayed by the speech. It was a brilliant performance. He has delivered his exit speech."

Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, said: "Love him or loathe him that was a leader's speech."

Election odds

Tony Blair's warmly received farewell speech prompted bookmakers to lengthen, rather than shorten, the party's odds of winning the next general election. Bookmakers Coral said the speech only served to emphasise the "gulf" between Mr Blair's appeal and that of his potential successors. They moved Labour's odds of victory in the poll from 7-4 to 2-1, while cutting the odds on David Cameron's Conservatives to 1-2 from 7-4. Liberal Democrats remain 100-1 outsiders.

    Blair's long goodbye, I, 27.9.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1761660.ece

Going, going, not quite gone

· Commanding speech ends in rapturous send-off
· Praise but no easy anointment for Brown

Wednesday September 27, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Tony Blair bade farewell to his party last night, insisting it was "right for him to let go" and challenging his successor to avoid the political comfort zone and show "raw courage" in meeting the new global task of reconciling liberty and security.

In one of the most commanding speeches he has delivered to conference, Mr Blair said winning the next election was the only legacy he wanted and promised to try to heal divisions at the top of the party after "a lot of talk about lies and truths these past few weeks".

To head off the calls for his early departure and avoid the suggestion he is a lame duck, after the speech officials briefed on the prime minister's final intray, including a 39-point programme focusing on security, which will be the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech.

The measures will include a criminal justice bill in the autumn, an immigration and nationality bill in the spring, and white papers on rail, energy and local government. There will be a renewed plan on child support, including proposals to improve opportunities for children in care.

During the speech, Mr Blair also promised to make peace in the Middle East his final priority.

Mr Blair appeared to be struggling to avoid tears as he received a rapturous send-off from delegates. But he bluntly told his party: "The truth is, you cannot go on forever. That is why it is right this is my last conference as leader. Of course it is hard to let go, but it is also right to let go; for the country and for you, the party." Mr Blair did not anoint Gordon Brown as his successor, but praised him.

In his final passage, he said he had always been a progressive and loved his party. He promised, "whatever you do, I'm always with you, head and heart. In the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do. I'm with you. Wishing you well. Wanting you to win."

After overnight headlines revelling in his wife, Cherie Blair, condemning the chancellor as a liar, Mr Blair punctured the tension at the outset of his speech by saying: "At least, I don't have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door."

He gave a brief, but clear, tribute to Mr Brown, describing him as a remarkable man and adding that the party's election victories were impossible without him.

Peter Mandelson, a close ally of the prime minister, also lavished praise on Mr Brown but pointedly said the chancellor had never reconciled himself to the fact that he had not become leader in 1994. No senior Blairite has so far broken ranks at this conference and endorsed the chancellor for the leadership.

The only other cabinet minister singled out for a mention in Mr Blair's speech, apart from Mr Brown, was the home secretary, John Reid. But overall Mr Blair stressed he was not seeking to bind his successor, but wanted to heal.

He said: "I will help to build a unified party with a strong platform for the only legacy that has ever mattered to me - a fourth-term election victory that allows us to keep changing Britain for the better."

Mr Blair displayed little bitterness at being forced to promise that this would be his last conference as leader. He called on the party not to be paralysed by deficits in the polls. "Polls now are as relevant as last year's weather forecast for tomorrow's weather. It's three years until the next election."

In his only reference to the dissident MPs who brought him down, Mr Blair praised ministers who had taken dismissal from office with good grace: "They never forgot their principles when in office; and they never discovered them when they left it."

Mr Blair's dominant theme was to tell New Labour that the challenges the country faced in 1997 were essentially British, and today, for "the Google generation", they were essentially global.

He said the task now was to reconcile "the openness to the rich possibilities of globalisation, with security in face of its threats". Liberty, he said, had to be made relevant to the modern world. Just as New Labour in the 80s had reconciled aspiration with compassion, so now the task was to reconcile openness and security. "The danger for us today is not reversion to the politics of the 1980s. It is to revert to the sidelines; to the comfort zone."

He also defended the war against terror and the alliance with the US. "This terrorism is not our fault, we didn't cause it," he said. "It's not the consequence of foreign policy, it's an attack on our way of life."

He added: "The British people will sometimes forgive a wrong decision. They won't forgive not deciding."

    Going, going, not quite gone, G, 27.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1881797,00.html

Blair's last hurrah

September 27, 2006
The Times
By Philip Webster, Political Editor

TONY BLAIR was given a hero’s farewell yesterday as he told his successor that Labour must never retreat to the comfort zone and should always show “raw courage” in the way it governed.

In a highly emotional final appearance as Prime Minister at the Labour conference, Mr Blair promised to heal the wounds of recent months to help the party towards his only legacy that mattered — a fourth-term victory. It was hard to let go but right to do so, he admitted.

But in what will be seen as a severe warning to Gordon Brown, he said that Labour must carry on reforming, show courage and avoid caution, and never move to the sidelines if it was to stay in power. His parting shot was: “You’re the future, make the most of it.”

He tried to replace the current mood of pessimism in his party with confidence, telling it to “get after” the Tories. There was no rule that said the Conservatives had to come back. He mocked David Cameron’s ambivalent stance on several policies and said that if Labour could not take the Conservatives apart in the next few years it “should not be in the business of politics”.

And in a masterly touch he brought the house down by laughing off his wife’s alleged feud with Mr Brown with the quip: “At least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door.”

Throughout, he reminded his party that he was a winner and had been prepared to be unpopular if he thought he was right, another piece of advice to his successor. As if to prove that, he referred frequently to many of the issues that have upset his party, such as Iraq, Lebanon, nuclear power and identity cards, and found himself being applauded on them one by one.

It was one of the most powerful performances by a Labour leader in memory and left many delegates wondering why he was going.

He told the party that he loved it and, in his going, it appeared to love him. Many delegates were in tears and Mr Blair appeared only just to be holding himself in check as he ended. A showman to the end, he left to rapturous applause, only to return quickly to walk with his family through the audience.

Labour politicians agreed last night that the speech would give Mr Blair the space to leave at a time of his choosing. Party officials dispelled talk of an early departure by disclosing an “in-tray”, including more than 30 initiatives, that he wants to set in train before leaving.

But Mr Blair said that his departure was right for the country and the party.He admitted openly that his relationship with Mr Brown had not always been easy but he paid him a generous tribute, saying that new Labour and three election victories could not have happened without him and that he was “a remarkable servant to his country”.

Offering advice to his successor, he said that the only Labour tradition he hated was losing. “I hated the 1980s not just for our irrelevance but for our revelling in irrelevance.”

And without being prescriptive about policies, the home truth to which he returned again and again was that the new leader should be bold.

    Blair's last hurrah, G, 27.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2377051,00.html

4.45pm update

I love this party, says departing Blair

· It's hard to let go, but it's right to let go
· Could not have done it without Brown
· No date for departure
· Tells party: Go after Cameron

Tuesday September 26, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

Tony Blair today took his leave of the Labour party, telling his final conference as leader that he loved the party and "wherever I am, whatever I do, I'm with you".

It was his 13th and final conference address and he received an ecstatic and emotional welcome from delegates in the hall, with standing ovations on arriving and at the end of his speech.

Loyal delegates in the G-Mex centre in Manchester held up hand-made banners saying "thank you". Many appeared to be in tears.

Mr Blair conceded: "It's hard to let go. But it is also right to let go. For the country, and for you, the party."

The speech, starting late, lasted 56 minutes. Mr Blair then left the stage to a standing ovation, as a film showing highlights of his 13 years of Labour leader was played. He later returned to gladhand delegates in the hall.

Referring to the row over his wife's reported rubbishing of Gordon Brown's speech yesterday, Mr Blair cracked one of his best jokes as leader, thanking Cherie for her support and adding: "At least I don't have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door."

But in one passage some took to refer to his chancellor, Mr Blair stated politics was first and foremost about "being a fully paid up member of the human race before being a fully paid up member of the Labour party".

Brown a 'remarkable servant to this country'

But he also effusively praised Mr Brown, calling him a "remarkable man. A remarkable servant to this country. And that is the truth."

"New Labour would never have happened and three election victories would never have been secured without Gordon Brown."

Mr Blair, watched by his family, the cabinet and an over-capacity G-Mex, recounted a litany of the supposed Tory failures which greeted his Labour government on taking office in 1997.

His speech then ranged across his relationship with the chancellor, the Labour party as a whole, the role of leadership, then globalisation, the environment, public services, the NHS, immigration, his relationship with George Bush and his account of Labour's successes.

He concluded: "Next year I won't be making this speech. You're the future now. Make the most of it."

As expected, however, he neither specified the exact date of his departure, nor categorically endorsed Mr Brown as his successor.

But he warned the party against any instinct to "unconsciously to lose the psychology of a governing party.

"There are no third-term ever-popular governments. The public will only lose faith in us if we lose faith in ourselves.

The British people will, sometimes, forgive a wrong decision... but they will not forgive not deciding."

The prime minister - who has said he will be gone by this time next year - said that his conclusion was: "Ten years on, our advantage is time, our disadvantage time."

He diverted from his prepared speech to recount an anecdote about his two sons, Nicky and Euan - normally off-limits in public - canvassing at the last election and being roundly abused until they revealed their father's identity - only to be invited in for a cup of tea.

Congratulating the party on transforming itself into New Labour, he told delegates the party had "abandoned the ridiculous, self-imposed dilemma between principle and power".

"The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled," he declared.

He also conspicuously praised ministers he had sacked who had made way "without a word of bitterness" - in unstated contrast to those ex-ministers who have called for him to go.

Mr Blair also name-checked "old Labour" MP Dennis Skinner, admitting that this persistent critic of his "still knew the difference between a Labour government and a Tory one".

Mr Blair outlined the challenge facing his party saying: "I won't be leading you in the next election but I've sat in the hot seat for 10 years.

World has changed since 1997

"Here's my advice: the scale of the challenges now dwarf what we faced in 1997. They are different, deeper, bigger, hammered out on the anvil of forces, global in nature, sweeping the world.

"With these opportunities comes huge insecurity."

He said 10 years ago energy policy had not been on the agenda; nor had the future of pensions, nor immigration, and terrorism "meant the IRA".

Mr Blair went on: "Not any more. We used to feel we could shut our front door on the problems and conflicts of the wider world. Not any more.

"Not with globalisation, not with climate change, not with organised crime, not when suicide bombers born and bred in Britain bring carnage to the streets of London in the name of religion."

He said: "A speech by the Pope to an academic seminar in Bavaria leads to protests in Britain."

Although he did not mention Mr Bush by name, he told delegates it was "hard sometimes to be America's strongest ally".

'Go after Cameron'

He dismissed Sir Menzies Campbell's Liberal Democrats as playing "fantasy government" and, after attacking David Cameron's Tories for a lack of policy detail, declared: "If we can't take this lot apart in the next few years we shouldn't be in the business of politics at all."

He told his party: "David Cameron's Tories, get after them."

And he warned them: "The first rule of politics: there are no rules. You make your own luck... Enough talk of hung parliaments."

Facing up head on to long-held suspicions in the Labour party, he admitted some of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s reforms were "necessary" for the country.

"That's the truth. Saying it doesn't make you a Tory. I'm a progressive.

"They say I hate the party and its traditions. I don't. I love this party. There's only one tradition I ever hated: losing."

Earlier, the leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, told Guardian Unlimited that he was confident that Mr Blair, in retirement, would not become a "back seat driver" in the manner of Mrs Thatcher.

"I am absolutely certain he won't [do that]." He said. "He's a man of character."

Defeat over housing

Mr Blair's final address came after the Labour leadership looked set to suffer its first conference defeat of the week, calling for more council house building directly funded by local authorities.

A show of hands appeared to show a defeat for the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, but the result of a final card vote will be made public later today.

The rebel motion, moved by Gravesham constituency Labour party, demands the government pursue a "fourth option" of direct investment in council homes.

    I love this party, says departing Blair, G, 26.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1881473,00.html

Full text

Tony Blair's speech

Text of the Labour leader's valedictory speech to the party conference

Tuesday September 26, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

"I'd like to start by saying something very simple. Thank you.

Thank you to you, our party, our members, our supporters, the people who week in, week out do the work, take the flak but don't often get the credit. Thank you, the Labour party for giving me the extraordinary privilege of leading you these past 12 years.

I know I look a lot older. That's what being leader of the Labour party does to you.

Actually, looking round some of you look a lot older.

That's what having me as leader of the Labour party does to you Nobody knows that better than John Prescott, my deputy these last 10 years, author of "traditional values in a modern setting".

I may have taken New Labour to the country but it was you that helped me take it to the party, so thank you.

Something I don't say often enough - thank you to my family.

It's usual after you thank the family, you thank your agent and yes I do want to thank him and through him the wonderful people of Sedgefield.

When I went to Sedgefield to seek the nomination, just before the 1983 election, I was a refugee from the London-based politics of that time.

I knocked on John Burton's door. He said "come in; but shut up for half an hour, we're watching the Cup Winners' Cup final".

I sat in the company of the most normal people I had met in the Labour party.

They taught me that most of politics isn't about politics, in the sense of meetings, resolutions, speeches or even parties. It starts with people.

It's about friendship, art, culture, sport. It's about being a fully paid up member of the human race before being a fully paid up member of the Labour party.

But above all else, I want to thank the British people.

Not just for the honour of being prime minister but for the journey of progress we have travelled together. Leaders lead but in the end it's the people who deliver.

In the last few months I've seen new hospitals like University College in London, the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital planned in Birmingham or Whiston Hospital in Knowsley, where I laid the foundation stone.

But without the talents and dedication of the NHS staff, they would be just empty shells.

It is their efforts which have cut waiting, improved care, transform and save tens of thousands of lives every day. Thank you.

And we in government can help put in place the new academy in Liverpool or the ground-breaking Education Village in Darlington which I have visited recently.

But it's the commitment and love of learning of their teachers and their pupils, and the support of parents, which have given our country the best educated children in our history. Thank you.

And what about Manchester?

A city transformed. A city that shows what a confident, open, and proud people with a great Labour council can do.

So thank you ....

In 1994, I stood before you for the first time and shared the country's anger at crumbling school buildings, patients languishing, sometimes dying in pain, waiting for operations, of crime doubled, of homes repossessed, of pensioners living in poverty; and told you of our dismay at four election defeats and how it was not us who should feel betrayed but the British people.

That such a speech seems so dated today is not through the passage of time but through progress.

In 1997, we faced daunting challenges.

Boom and bust economics.

Chronic under-investment in our public services.

Social division, with millions living in poverty, including over 3 million children.

And more than all this, a country culturally and socially behind. No black ministers and never a black cabinet minister.

Parliament, supposedly the forum of the people, with only one in 10 women MPs.

Gay people denied equal rights.

Trade unionists able to be sacked for joining a union.

Workers on £1.20 an hour, legally. London the only major capital city in the world without city government.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all run from Whitehall. Inner cities depleted, a refuge for the dispossessed.

This was a country aching for change.

Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved.

We have had the longest period of sustained economic growth in British history.

Mortgage repossession, like mass unemployment, are terms we have to be reminded of.

The last NHS winter crisis was six years ago.

Heart patients wait on average less than three months. Cancer deaths are down by 43,000.

You are more likely to see a new school building than a crumbling one.

There are virtually no long- term young unemployed.

Today we ask: can we meet our ambitious targets on child poverty when, before 1997, the idea of a child poverty target would have been laughable?

We have black ministers and the first woman and then the first black woman leader of the Lords. Not enough women MPs but twice what there were.

A London mayor, thankfully Labour again. Devolution in Scotland and Wales. But not just this.

Free museum entry that has seen a 50% rise in visitors.

Banning things that should never have been allowed: handguns, cosmetic testing on animals; fur farming, blacklisting of trade unionists and from summer next year, smoking in public places.

Allowing things that should never have been banned: the right to roam; the right to request flexible working; civil partnerships for gay people.

And in 2012 it is London that will host the Olympic games.

Of course, the daily coverage of politics focuses on the negative.

But take a step back and be proud: this is a changed country.

Above all, it is progressive ideas which define its politics. That is the real result of a third term victory.

And the Tories have to pretend they love it.

The Bank of England independence, they never did in 18 years, the minimum wage, they told us would cost a million jobs. The help for the world's poor, they cut. They fall over themselves saying how much they agree with us.

Don't lose heart from that; take heart from it.

We have changed the terms of political debate.

This Labour government has been unique.

First time ever two full terms; now three. Why? How?

We faced out to the people, not in on ourselves. We put the party at the service of the country.

Their reality became our reality. Their worries, our worries.

We abandoned the ridiculous, self-imposed dilemma between principle and power.

We went back to first principles, to our values, our real values, those that are timeless, and separated them from doctrine and dogma that had been ravaged by time.

In doing so, we freed Britain at long last from the reactionary choice that dominated British politics for so long: between individual prosperity and a caring society.

We proved that economic efficiency and social justice are not opposites but partners in progress.

We defied conventional political wisdom and so changed it.

Around that we built a new political coalition.

The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled.

We reach out not just to those in poverty or need but those who are doing well but want to do better; those on the way up, ambitious for themselves and their families.

These are our people too.

Not to be tolerated for electoral reasons.

But embraced out of political conviction.

The core vote of this party today is not the heartlands, the inner city, not any sectional interest or lobby.

Our core vote is the country.

It was they who made us change.

The beliefs of the Labour party of 2006 should be recognisable to the members of 1906. Full employment; strong public services; tackling poverty; international solidarity.

The policies shouldn't.

The trouble was for a long time they were.

In the 1960s, re-reading the cabinet debates of In Place of Strife, everyone was telling Harold Wilson not to push it. They said it was divisive, unnecessary, alienated core support. In the end he gave up but so did the public on Labour.

Even in 1974, the Labour government spent two years renationalising shipbuilding and the public spent two years wondering why.

In the 1980s, council house sales had first been suggested by Labour people. It was shelved. Too difficult. Too divisive. We lost a generation of aspiring working class people on the back of it.

In the 1980s we should have been the party transforming Britain.

We weren't.

The lesson is always the same.

Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world.

We won not because we surrendered our values but because we finally had the courage to be true to them.

Our courage in changing gave the British people the courage to change.

That's how we won.

10 years after, government has taken its toll. It does. It's in the nature of the beast.

In the harsh climate of the 24/7 media, in which gossip and controversy are so much more newsworthy than real news, people forget.

I spoke to a woman the other day, a part-time worker, complaining about the amount of her tax credit.

I said: hold on a minute: before 1997, there were no tax credits not for working families not for any families; child benefit was frozen; maternity pay half what it is; maternity leave likewise and paternity leave didn't exist at all. And no minimum wage, no full time rights for part time workers, in fact nothing.

"So what?", she said "that's why we elected you. Now go and sort out my tax credit." And, of course, she's right.

In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.

The truth is, you can't go on forever.

That's why it is right that this is my last conference as Leader.

Of course it is hard to let go. But it is also right to let go. For the country, and for you, the party.

Over the coming months, I will take through the changes I have worked on so hard these past years.

And I will help build a unified party with a strong platform for the only legacy that has ever mattered to me - a fourth term election victory that allows us to keep changing Britain for the better.

And I want to heal. There has been a lot of talk of lies and truths these past few weeks.

In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.

But I know New Labour would never have happened, and 3 election victories would never have been secured, without Gordon Brown.

He is a remarkable man. A remarkable servant to this country. And that is the truth.

So now, 10 years on, this party faces the real test of leadership: not about what we've achieved in the past; but what we can achieve for Britain's future.

Not just how do we win again; but how does Britain carry on winning?

I won't be leading you in the next election.

But I've sat in the hot seat for 10 years.

Here's my advice.

The scale of the challenges now dwarf what we faced in 1997. They are different, deeper, bigger, hammered out on the anvil of forces, global in nature, sweeping the world.

In 1997 the challenges we faced were essentially British. Today they are essentially global.

The world today is a vast reservoir of potential opportunity. New jobs in environmental technology, the creative industries, financial services. Cheap goods and travel. The internet. Advances in science and technology.

In 10 years we will think nothing of school-leavers going off to university anywhere in the world.

But with these opportunities comes huge insecurity.

In 1997 we barely mentioned China. Not any more. Last year China and India produced more graduates than all of Europe put together.

10 years ago, energy wasn't on the agenda. The environment an also-ran.

10 years ago, if we talked pensions we meant pensioners.

Immigration hardly raised.

Terrorism meant the IRA.

Not any more.

We used to feel we could shut our front door on the problems and conflicts of the wider world. Not any more.

Not with globalisation. Not with climate change. Not with organised crime. Not when suicide bombers born and bred in Britain bring carnage to the streets of London . In the name of religion.

A speech by the Pope to an academic seminar in Bavaria leads to protests in Britain.

The question today is different to the one we faced in 1997.

It is how we reconcile openness to the rich possibilities of globalisation, with security in the face of its threats.

How to be open and secure.

And again, there is a third way. Some want a fortress Britain - job protection, pull up the drawbridge, get out of international engagement.

Others see no option but to submit to global forces and let the strongest survive.

Our answer is very clear. It is, once again, to help people through a changing world by using collective power to advance opportunity and provide security for all.

To reconcile openness and security as we reconciled aspiration and compassion, not as enemies but as partners in progress.

The British people today are reluctant global citizens.

We must make them confident ones.

The danger in all this, for us, is not ditching New Labour. The danger is failing to understand that New Labour in 2007 won't be New Labour in 1997.

10 years ago I would have described re-linking the BSP with earnings as "Old Labour". Our aim is by 2012, but by the end of the next parliament at the latest - we are going to do it. Rodney Bickerstaffe has become New Labour. Or have I become Old Labour?

10 years ago, if you had asked me to put environmental obligations on business, I would have been horrified. Now I'm advocating it.

I would have baulked at restrictions on advertising junk food to children. Today I say unless a voluntary code works, we will legislate for it.

10 years ago I parked the issue of nuclear power. Today, I believe without it, we are going to face an energy crisis and we can't let that happen.

Over the next year we are reviewing every aspect of our economic policy, not because we were wrong in the past, but because whether in tax and spending, regulation, planning, enterprise, the question is not about our competitiveness in the last 10 years, but in the next 10.

Developing financial services and the City of London; the creative industries and modern manufacturing. How to be the world's number one place of choice for bio-science - if America does not want stem-cell research - we do.

How to fund transport through road-pricing.

Skills. I say to business: you have a responsibility to train your workforce. To trade unions: here is the chance to be the learning partners for the workforce of the next generation. Take the chance.

Global warming is the greatest long-term threat to our planet's environment. Scarce energy resources mean rising prices and will threaten our country's economy.

In 15 years we will go from 80% self-sufficient in oil and gas to 80% imported.

We need therefore the most radical overhaul of energy policy since the War.

We will increase the amount of energy from renewable sources fivefold; ensure every major business in the country has a responsibility for greenhouse gas reduction; treble investment in clean technology, including clean coal; and make sure every new home is at least 40% more energy efficient.

We will meet our Kyoto targets by double the amount; and we will take the necessary measures, step by step by step, to meet one of the most ambitious targets on the environment set anywhere in the world - a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050.

In the future, as people live longer, we can't afford good pensions and help for disabled people who can't work, with 4 million people on benefit, many of whom could work. Almost a million less than there were. But too many.

That is why we need more radical welfare reform, getting more disabled people, more lone parents, more on unemployment benefit, into work, not to destroy the welfare state. But to preserve it.

And why is reform so important in public services?

Over the past 10 years Britain has invested more in our public services than any comparable nation in the world. From near the bottom in Europe to the average in a decade.

300,000 more workers, treble the money, 25% more pay in real terms and the largest ever hospital programme; that is an NHS being re-built not privatised.

Refurbishing or rebuilding every state secondary school in the country. 92,000 more classroom assistants, 36,000 more teachers, pay also up 17% in real terms. This isn't privatising state education; it's producing the best schools results ever.

But what happens?

Expectations rise. People want power in their own hands.

Two thirds of the country has access to the internet. Millions of people are ordering flights or books or other goods on-line, they are talking to their friends on-line, downloading music, all of it when they want to, not when the shop or office is open.

The Google generation has moved beyond the idea of 9-5, closed on weekends and bank holidays. Today's technology is profoundly empowering.

Of course public services are different. Their values are different. But today people won't accept a service handed down from on high. They want to shape it to their needs, and the reality of their lives.

The same global forces changing business are at work in public services too. New ways of treating. New ways of teaching. New technologies.

There will be no selective trust schools or city academies. But if, as at the academy I visited in Lewisham, good GCSE results doubled in a year, and a school once under-subscribed, now five times over-subscribed, how is that a denial of public service values? Surely it is the most vivid affirmation of them.

And if an old age pensioner who used to wait 2 years for her cataract operation now gets it on the NHS in an independent treatment centre, in 3 months, free at the point of use, that is not damaging the NHS; it is fulfilling its purpose.

My advice: at the next election, the issue will not only be who is trusted to invest in our public services, vital though that is.

It will be who comes first.

And our answer has to be.

The patient; the parent.

Meeting the 18 weeks maximum for waiting in the NHS with an average of 9 weeks from the door of the GP to the door of the operating theatre. Booked appointments. The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic.

Transforming secondary schools in the way we have done for primary schools. Schools with three quarters of children getting good results the norm. Historic.

Both within reach.

Do this and we will have earned the right to be custodians of our public services for the next generation.

If we fail, and without change we will, then believe me: change will still be done; but in a regressive way by a Conservative Party.

I want change true to progressive values, done by a fourth term Labour Government.

I always said the Home Office was the toughest job in government. It hasn't got easier.

We should get a few facts straight. Crime has fallen not risen. We are the only government since the war to do it. Asylum applications are dealt with faster, removals are greater, the system infinitely better than the chaos we inherited in 1997.

But the fact is that the world is changing so fast that the reality we are dealing with - mass migration, organised crime, ASB - has engulfed systems designed for a time gone by.

30 million people now come to Britain every year. Visitors, tourists, workers, students. Our economy needs them. 227 million pass through our airports.

Yet we have no means of checking who is here lawfully.

The fundamental dilemma: how do we reconcile liberty with security in this new world?

I don't want to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society or put any of our essential freedoms in jeopardy. But because our idea of liberty is not keeping pace with change in reality, those freedoms are in jeopardy.

When crimes go unpunished, that is a breach of the victim's liberty and human rights.

When organised crime gangs are free to practice their evil, countless young people have their liberty and often their lives damaged.

When ASB goes unchecked, each and every member of the community in which it happens, has their human rights broken.

When we can't deport foreign nationals even when inciting violence the country is at risk.

Immigration has benefited Britain.

But I know that if we don't have rules that allow us some control over who comes in, goes out, who has a right to stay and who has not, then instead of a welcome, migrants find fear.

We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.

That is why Identity Cards using biometric technology are not a breach of our basic rights, they are an essential part of responding to the reality of modern migration and protecting us against identity fraud.

I remember when I introduced the DNA database. On it go all those who are arrested. We were told it was a monstrous breach of liberty.

But it is now matching 3,000 offences a month including last year several hundred murders, and thousands of rapes and other violent offences.

Difficult reform leading to real progress in the fight against crime.

In the next parliamentary session, the centre-piece will be John Reid's immigration and law and order reforms.

I ask people of all parties to support them.

Let liberty stand up for the law-abiding.

And of course, the new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit.

This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible.

This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it.

It's not the consequence of foreign policy.

It's an attack on our way of life.

It's global.

It has an ideology.

It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of.

It has been decades growing.

Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey.

Over 30 nations in the world.

It preys on every conflict.

It exploits every grievance.

And its victims are mainly Muslim.

This is not our war against Islam.

This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam. And all of us, Western and Arab, Christian or Muslim, who put the value of tolerance, respect and peaceful co-existence above those of sectarian hatred, should join together to defeat them.

It is not British soldiers who are sending car bombs into Baghdad or Kabul to slaughter the innocent.

They are there along with troops of 30 other nations with, in each case, a full UN mandate at the specific request of the first ever democratically elected Governments of those countries in order to protect them against the very ideology also seeking the deaths of British people in planes across the Atlantic.

If we retreat now, hand Iraq over to Al Qaida and sectarian death squads and Afghanistan back to Al Qaida and the Taleban, we won't be safer; we will be committing a craven act of surrender that will put our future security in the deepest peril.

Of course it's tough.

Not a day goes by or an hour in the day when I don't reflect on our troops with admiration and thanks - the finest, the best, the bravest, any nation could hope for.

They are not fighting in vain. But for this nation's future.

But this is not a conventional war. It can't be won by force alone.

It's not a clash of civilisations.

It's about civilisation, about the ideas that shape it.

From 9/11 until now I have said again and again. If we want our values to be the ones that govern global change, we have to show that they are fair, just and delivered with an even hand.

From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland , to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism.

We must never again let Lebanon become the battleground for a conflict that neither Israeli or Lebanese people wanted though it was they who paid the price for it.

Peace in Lebanon is a defeat for terrorism.

Action in Africa is a defeat for terrorism.

What is happening now in the Sudan cannot stand. If this were in the continent of Europe we would act.

Showing an African life is worth as much as a Western one - that would help defeat terrorism too.

Yes it's hard sometimes to be America's strongest ally.

Yes, Europe can be a political headache for a proud sovereign nation like Britain.

But believe me there are no half-hearted allies of America today and no semi-detached partners in Europe.

And the truth is that nothing we strive for, from the world trade talks to global warming, to terrorism and Palestine can be solved without America, or without Europe.

At the moment I know people only see the price of these alliances.

Give them up and the cost in terms of power, weight and influence for Britain would be infinitely greater.

Distance this country and you may find it's a long way back.

So all these changes of a magnitude we never dreamt of, sweeping the world, are calling for answers of equal magnitude and vision.

All require leadership. And here is something else I've learnt. The danger for us today is not reversion to the politics of the 1980s. It is retreat to the sidelines.

To the comfort zone. It is unconsciously to lose the psychology of a governing party.

As I said in 1994, courage is our friend. Caution, our enemy.

A governing party has confidence, self-belief. It sees the tough decision and thinks it should be taking it.

Reaches for responsibility first.

Serves by leading.

The most common phrase uttered to me - and not at rallies or public events but in meetings of chance, quietly, is not "I hate you" or "I like you" but "I would not have your job for all the world".

The British people will, sometimes, forgive a wrong decision.

They won't forgive not deciding.

They know the choices are hard.

They know there isn't some fantasy government where nothing difficult ever happens. They've got the Lib Dems for that.

Government isn't about protests or placards, shouting the odds or stealing the scene. It's about the hard graft of achievement.

There are no third-term popular governments. Don't ignore the polls but don't be paralysed by them either.

10 years on, our advantage is time, our disadvantage time.

Time gives us experience. Our capacity to lead is greater.

Time gives the people fatigue; their willingness to be led, is less.

But they will lose faith in us only if first we lose faith in ourselves.

Polls now are as relevant as last year's weather forecast for tomorrow's weather. It's three years until an election.

The first rule of politics: there are no rules. You make your own luck.

There's no rule that says the Tories have got to come back.

David Cameron's Tories? My advice: get after them.

His foreign policy. Pander to anti-Americanism by stepping back from America . Pander to the Eurosceptics through isolation in Europe. Sacrificing British influence for party expediency is not a policy worthy of a prime minister.

His immigration policy. Says he'll sort out illegal immigration, but opposes identity cards, the one thing essential to do it.

His energy policy. Nuclear power "only as a last resort". It's not a multiple choice quiz question, Mr Cameron. We need to decide now otherwise in 10 years time we will be importing expensive fossil fuels and Britain's economy will suffer.

He wants tax cuts and more spending, with the same money.

He wants a bill of rights for Britain drafted by a committee of lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a committee of lawyers?

And his policy for the old lady terrorised by the young thug is that she should put her arm round him and give him a nice, big hug.

Built to last? They haven't even laid the foundation stone. If we can't take this lot apart in the next few years we shouldn't be in the business of politics at all.

The Tories haven't thought it through. They think it's all about image. It's true we changed our image. We created a professional organisation.

But if I'd stood in 1997 on the policies of 1987 I would have lost. Period.

And it's the same now. Enough talk of hung parliaments.

The next election won't be about image unless we let it be.

It'll be about who has the strength, judgment, weight and ideas for Britain's future in an uncertain world.

And if we show belief in ourselves, the British people will feel that belief and be given confidence.

Something else I've learnt.

It's about a party's character.

I'll give you two examples.

Dennis Skinner. Watching from his sick bed. Get well soon.

Never agreed with a policy I've had.

Never once stopped him knowing the difference between a Labour government and a Tory one.

People like Janet Anderson, George Howarth, Mike Hall.

Good ministers, but I asked them to make way. They did. Without a word of bitterness.

They never forgot their principles when in office; and they never discovered them when they left office.

This is the party I am proud to lead.

From the day I was elected until the day I leave, they will always try to separate us.

"He's not Labour." "He's a closet Tory."

In the 1980s some things done were necessary for the country. That's the truth.

Saying it doesn't make you a Tory.

I'm a progressive.

The true believer believes in social justice, in solidarity, in help for those not able to help themselves.

They know the race can't just be to the swift and survival for the strong.

But they also know that these values, gentle and compassionate as they are, have to be applied in a harsh, uncompromising world and what makes the difference is not belief alone, but the raw courage to make it happen.

They say I hate the party, and its traditions.

I don't.

I love this party.

There's only one tradition I hated:

losing.

I hated the 1980s not just for our irrelevance but for our revelling in irrelevance.

And I don't want to win for winning's sake but for the sake of the millions here that depend on us to win, and throughout the world.

Every day this government has been in power, every day in Africa, children have lived who otherwise would have died because this country led the way in cancelling debt and global poverty.

That's why winning matters.

So keep on winning.

Do it with optimism.

With hope in your hearts.

Politics is not a chore.

It's the great adventure of progress.

I don't want to be the Labour leader who won three successive elections.

I want to be the first Labour leader to win three successive elections.

So: it's up to you.

You take my advice. You don't take it. Your choice.

Whatever you do, I'm always with you. Head and heart.

You've given me all I have ever achieved, and all that we've achieved, together, for the country.

Next year I won't be making this speech.

But, in the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do. I'm with you. Wishing you well. Wanting you to win.

You're the future now. Make the most of it.

    Tony Blair's speech, G, 26.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1881510,00.html

4pm update

Brown regrets differences with PM

Monday September 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent, in Manchester

Gordon Brown today laid out his credentials to be the next Labour leader and prime minister, but confessed "regret" to the party conference over his rows with Tony Blair.

The chancellor began his speech with an immediate tribute to the departing prime minister, but added: "Where, over these years, differences have distracted from what matters, I regret that, as I know Tony does too."

Delegates in Manchester gave the loudest applause of the chancellor's crucial speech to Mr Brown's declaration that he would "relish" taking on David Cameron.

This line was also warmly clapped by a smiling prime minister.

But the show of unity between the two men risked being overshadowed by a row over comments allegedly made by Cherie Blair.

Downing Street denied that the PM's wife had blurted out: "Well, that's a lie," while watching the chancellor profess his loyalty to Mr Blair on TV during the speech.

Mr Brown's Tory shadow, George Osborne, said Mr Brown was guilty of nine years of failure, and "if the British people want change, they will have to vote for it."

However the bookmakers shortened the odds on Mr Brown succeeding Mr Blair from 4/11 to 2/7.

This means that a customer who bet £7 would only win £2 if the chancellor became Labour leader.

Mr Brown paid tribute to the PM, telling Mr Blair: "You taught our party - you saw it right, you saw it clearly and you saw it through - that we can't just be for one section of society, we've got to be for all of society."

He added that Labour "must stand for more than a programme; we must have a soul."

The PM, who sat on stage alongside Mr Brown, has so far refused to endorse any candidate as his successor.

Mr Brown told delegates during the 37-minute speech that he was essentially a "quiet, private person", contrasting himself with the ostensibly more charismatic Mr Cameron.

But he insisted to Labour delegates that he would "relish the opportunity to take on David Cameron and the Conservative party".

The chancellor also stressed that he would, if elected leader, want to "draw on all the talents of our party and country", hinting that he might offer cabinet jobs to personal rivals.

And he talked about his upbringing in a Scottish rectory "surrounded by books, sports, music and encouragement", opportunities denied to some of his friends.

Mr Brown stressed that he was "proud to be both Scottish and British", an oblique reference to Labour worries that the chancellor does not reach the parts of Middle England that Mr Blair appeals to.

Controversially, he also insisted that new immigrants to the UK must speak English, and hinted that there would be restrictions on EU migration from Romania and Bulgaria next year.

Calling his parents his "inspiration" for being in politics, he added: "I don't romanticise my upbringing."

After being criticised for selling himself as a fan of Arctic Monkeys, the best-selling rock band, he joked: "I'm more interested in the future of the Arctic circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys."

His speech ranged across the Middle East, global poverty, terror, education, the environment, citizenship, parliament, as well as his own childhood and his praise for Mr Blair.

As billed in advance, he suggested forming an independent executive to run areas like the NHS, in the manner in which he made the Bank of England independent.

Despite his reputation as a centralising politician, he told the conference: "I believe we must now examine how elsewhere we can separate the decisions that, in a democracy, elected politicians must make from the business of day-to-day administration."

He suggested that decisions over peace and war should be matters for parliament, as well as making patronage over appointments arm's-length from government in the wake of the cash-for-honours saga.

And, while the police investigation into claims that Labour lenders were offered honours continues, Mr Brown said he thought that home helps and carers "should be the first call for our honours system".

In a seeming reference to his ambition to win a fourth and possibly fifth election for Labour, he talked of the challenges over the next decade, saying the "next 10 years will be even more demanding".

On policy, he announced that the Treasury would be publishing a far-reaching study of the interaction of economics and climate change in the next few days.

He admitted that governments across the world had moved too slowly on climate change.

Mr Brown also challenged opposition parties to match his commitment to boost spending on education to levels where state expenditure per pupil meets private levels.

After the tumultuous infighting of early September, a tentative truce between the Blair and Brown camps is so far holding in Manchester.

    Brown regrets differences with PM, G, 25.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1880589,00.html

Blair sidesteps big question and admits the party went Awol

Delegates must focus on policy, not succession, says PM

Monday September 25, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent

Tony Blair yesterday refused to publicly anoint Gordon Brown as his successor, insisting that the two men had agreed that the Labour conference should concentrate on policy. Anyone with the interests of the party at heart would agree with that, he said, in an interview from Manchester on BBC1's Sunday AM programme.

Resisting an offer from the interviewer Andrew Marr to settle speculation about his view in five seconds, Mr Blair said he did not "resile" from the praise he had previously showered on Mr Brown, including the comment that he would make a brilliant prime minister. "I've said all I'm going to say on it. And the reason for that is very, very simple: because this week we should reconnect with the public."

On his successor

Pressed to endorse the chancellor as his successor, Mr Blair said he was "not playing this game with you", although he indicated that he might one day give a view on who should replace him.

"I am still doing the job myself. There will come a later time when I will answer all these questions fully and in detail. The important thing now is for me to get on with my job," he said. "Gordon has been a fantastic chancellor. He has been a great servant of the country and the party and I don't resile from anything I have said before. But this week I am talking to the public about the public's concerns. That's the agreement we made at cabinet and that's what we are going to do. Both of us realise - and we were talking about this yesterday together - that the most important thing is that this week we set out our agenda for the future."

What it means

The prime minister retains one of the few levers of power he has over the chancellor.

On leaving office

Mr Blair played down the personal emotion attached to coming to his last conference as party leader. "For me, it's not nostalgia. I'm not that kind of person." He was concentrating on his party conference speech. "Of course it's strange in one way because it's your last conference."

Asked if he would come to next year's conference in Bournemouth, he said: " I'll be there as a delegate accusing the leadership of selling out and saying why we need more radical socialism." Later he said he hadn't "the faintest idea" whether he would be there.

He suggested he would stay on as an MP for Sedgefield after he stood down as prime minister but he accepted he would have only limited power to affect the future direction of the party once he left office. "One thing's for sure, once you stop being leader, you stop being leader."

What it means

Mr Blair is desperate to stem the flow of premature political obituaries and nervous of fuelling more talk about life after No 10.

On the conference

Mr Blair said the last month - in which a ministerial resignation and demands for him to quit forced him to declare that he would leave within the year - had been bad for the party. "For the first time since I became leader, the Labour party went awol from the British public, it looked in on itself, it started all the infighting and the rest of it. The public out there are angry about that. They don't want to see their government do that. They want us to govern."

He added: "What I want to do this week is say to the party: 'We have had a difficult time recently. Go back, focus on the public, the public's concerns and things that really worry people. If we do that, then all the stuff of the last few weeks will be forgotten and we can concentrate on the future'." Immigration, terrorism and law and order issues would form the centrepiece of the next Queen's speech, the prime minister said.

What it means

Mr Blair blames others for the botched way in which he announced his departure.

On the next election

"For the first time in Labour's history there's very little fundamental ideological division. The issue for us is completely different and it's a very exciting time for us. In 1997 we ushered in a different approach to running Britain. What we have now got to do is recognise that, 10 years on, the world's different again. So we have got to go back into the fundamental challenges." He had no doubt the direction of policy would "carry on being New Labour". He was unconcerned about polls showing the Conservatives decisively ahead; the Tories had been 10 or 15 points behind in polls in the 1980s and still whacked Labour at the election. If Labour had the "big answers to the big questions" they would win.

"If we are strong and unified and it is a thoroughly New Labour direction we are putting forward for changed times, I tell you we will be fine, we will come back."

What it means

The PM believes Labour has to stay New Labour if it is to win a fourth term. He sees himself at the centre of British politics, in tune with the public mood in a way his party is not.

On the NHS

Mr Blair was cool about the idea of giving the NHS an independent structure more at arms-length from ministers. This idea has been floated by the chancellor and by some Blairites. But Mr Blair believes the health service needs strong political control from Whitehall. "We should debate it but the most important thing is to keep the reform programme going."

He dismissed fears about the extent of private sector involvement in providing NHS services. "It's a kind of redundant argument in the end," he said. Mr Blair defended the privatisation of the hospital supply agency NHS Logistics, which has provoked the biggest strike in the health service for 20 years. "Of course there are always going to be limits to the market in the NHS."

What it means

The prime minister doesn't think much of some of the new ideas emerging for a post-Blair era.

    Blair sidesteps big question and admits the party went Awol, G, 25.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1880223,00.html

Protesters gather to vent their anger at PM

Published: 23 September 2006
The Independent
By Ian Herbert

They range from the very young to a woman of nearly 101 and had already started arriving last night, by train, foot, bicycle and on horseback. A multitude of protesters, harbouring anger and indignation over some of the most basic tenets of the Government's foreign, environmental and judicial policies, will gather today, on the eve of the Labour Party conference in Manchester, for one of the biggest public protests the city has seen in modern times.

About 30,000 people are expected to mass in the city ahead of a three-hour march, under the banner "Time to Go", aimed at challenging Tony Blair's stance on a number of emotive issues: the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Government's response to the bombing of Lebanon this summer, the next generation of nuclear weapons, the building of new nuclear power stations and the deportation of failed asylum-seekers.

The protest was well under way at lunchtime yesterday as scores of people joined an anti-war "peace camp", set up by Military Families Against the War (MFAW) on Thursday afternoon. The protesters appear to have benefited from Manchester City Council's decision to refuse them permission to camp at Albert Square in the city centre on safety grounds. Facing a showdown with MFAW's Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon died in Iraq two years ago, the council found a compromise location in St Peter's Square on the opposite side of Manchester town hall. The Labour council leader, Richard Leese, tried to smooth things over by arriving to declare the camp open, but the furore created by the initial refusal had boosted the camp's tents to more than 20 by yesterday afternoon.

At 1pm today, their occupants will join the protest march on a route which circles the large city centre "island" - encompassing the Manchester International Conference Centre, the G-Mex centre and the Midland and Radisson hotels - which has been closed to the public for the duration of the conference.

The march, starting in Albert Square and moving up central Deansgate, will be supported by members of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. Greater Manchester Police will have 1,000 officers patrolling the event with 250 from neighbouring forces in reserve. "It is the biggest operation in terms of public order that Greater Manchester has ever had," said Superintendent John O'Hare, who is in charge of policing.

The number of protesters willing to travel from London has delighted the Stop the War Coalition, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain, who are organising the march. A fully booked "Peace Train" carrying more than 600 passengers will leave London and coachloads more, from Dundee to Newquay, will arrive to hear speakers including Tony Benn and Brian Eno ahead of the march. One group of protesters has travelled by foot over the Peak District from Sheffield, environmentalists have made it by bicycle from London and an MFAW campaigner, Wendy McCartney, has ridden her horse from Whitchurch in Shropshire on a so-called "Ride for Peace" - to widespread acclaim en route.

The march will mark the start of five days' of potential gridlock for Manchester - the price it must pay for attracting the first Labour Party conference in the city since 1917. A large area around the conference venues and hotels was closed to traffic from yesterday, the latest stage in a police operation which will involve 1,000 officers a day and cost £4.2m.

Security arrangements, which had to be reviewed earlier in the week after thieves stole a laptop with confidential plans for the conference, include a no-fly zone. The public will also be denied access to the conference area where metal fencing, concrete blocks and check points have been installed to create a "ring of steel" around the G-Mex and the international conference centre. Work has also taken place to make the "buffer zone" outside the security barriers secure.

The zone includes the site of St Peter's Field, where Manchester's "Peterloo" occurred after a radical orator, Henry Hunt, addressed 60,000 people in August 1918 and police officers intervened, killing 11 people.

A history of demonstrations

1985

Militant Tendency opponents of Neil Kinnock, led by Derek Hatton, barrack the Labour leader as he demands an end to extremism within the party.

2001

Anti-globalisation protesters stage a demonstration in Brighton. It follows a series of clashes earlier in the summer with Italian police at a G8 summit in Genoa.

2003

Protesters against Iraq war mass in Bournemouth, carrying placards saying: "Bomber Blair doesn't care." They are joined by other protesters challenging the implementation of university top-up fees and foundation hospitals.

2004

Almost 10,000 fox-hunting enthusiasts, led by the Countryside Alliance, lay siege to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in protest at the proposed ban on hunting with dogs.

2005

Walter Wolfgang, 83, is ejected from the Labour Party conference after shouting "nonsense" during a speech by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, defending British policy in Iraq. His intervention results in ejection from the hall by security guards and the Terrorism Act is used to prevent his re-entry. The Labour Party later apologises and allows his readmission.

    Protesters gather to vent their anger at PM, I, 23.9.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1705613.ece

11.15am

Blair sets out 10-year plan to cabinet

Wednesday September 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

Tony Blair briefed a special "political" cabinet on his policy plans for the best part of the next decade today, ahead of next week's epochal Labour party conference.

Although the prime minister has promised to step down within the next 12 months, he has also commissioned review groups on four areas of government policy taking Labour up to and beyond a fourth general election.

This has troubled supporters of Gordon Brown, who fear that Mr Blair is attempting to shackle a successor to his own vision.

The PM wants the findings of four working groups on economic competitiveness, public services, security and migration and foreign policy to shape next year's comprehensive spending review and provide a blueprint for Labour's manifesto in 2009-10.

A political cabinet is one that meets to discuss Labour party tactics, rather than purely governmental matters.

Sitting around the table at No 10 this morning were most of the candidates expected to contest the deputy leadership of the party, if not the top job itself.

Mr Blair and his deputy, John Prescott, are expected to stand down at the same time, triggering two contests.

Next week's conference - held, for the first time, in Manchester - will see candidates drumming up support behind the scenes for their ambitions to succeed Mr Prescott.

Yesterday the home secretary, John Reid, a Blairite, appeared to rule himself out of challenging Gordon Brown, the chancellor, for the leadership, saying he had no "personal amibition" for the job.

Alan Johnson, the education secretary, has expressed an interest in standing for deputy leader, but has not yet made clear his intentions on the leadership.

Other deputy leadership candidates include Peter Hain, who launched his campaign last week, Harriet Harman, and probably Jack Straw.

Mr Blair is also thought to have briefed his cabinet colleagues today on the themes of his forthcoming conference speech, which he has already told them will tackle the issues which he feels must be addressed if Labour is to be as successful for the decade after he departs as it has been since 1997.

He believes that this can only be achieved by appealing to those who want to "get on" as the party of aspiration and opportunity.

After the meeting, which lasted about two hours, broke up, Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "Today was about agreeing in principle a process.

"There will be a later discussion at cabinet as to how that translates into an actual process and at that point it will become part of the government process."

That meeting is expected in about a fortnight's time.

Leaving No 10, Jack Straw, the leader of the Commons, said the meeting had been "excellent", but the prime minister ignored reporters' questions.

Next week's conference takes place in a highly combustible atmosphere.

The Labour party has seemed on the verge of civil war in recent weeks, with previously loyal government members such as Sion Simon and Chris Bryant resigning their government posts and telling Mr Blair to go immediately.

That prompted Mr Blair to call an unscheduled press conference at a north London school to confirm that he would be gone within a year - contrary to previous assurances he would serve a full third term.

But the Europe minister, Geoff Hoon, reopened the row over the weekend by publicly urging Mr Blair to resign before next May's elections to the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and local councils.

Also meeting today is Labour's ruling national executive committee, which will finalise arrangements for the Manchester conference.

The future of ex-cabinet minister Clare Short is also likely to be discussed at the all-day NEC meeting in London.

Last week, Ms Short revealed that she would resign at the next election, that she was "ashamed" of the government and that she would campaign for a hung parliament.

Ms Short could face expulsion from the Labour party for her remarks, although that process would take time.

The NEC is also likely to discuss plans to restructure the party and cut jobs and spending to help reduce the party's debt.

    Blair sets out 10-year plan to cabinet, G, 20.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1876797,00.html

Blair hit by Lebanon backlash as minister admits ceasefire 'mistake'

The war lasted 34 days. It left 1,393 people dead. Another 5,350 injured. And more than 1,150,000 displaced, of whom 215,413 are still homeless. The damage amounts to more than £2.6bn. Exactly one month after it ended, a Foreign Office minister admits that Tony Blair should have called for a ceasefire

Published: 14 September 2006
The Independent
By Andy McSmith

A Foreign Office minister has conceded that Tony Blair's refusal to call for a ceasefire during 34 days of slaughter in Lebanon may have been a mistake.

The admission by Kim Howells, minister for the Middle East, reflects the growing worries of senior figures in government that Mr Blair's defence of US foreign policy at every turn is damaging his administration at home and abroad.

Mr Howells also conceded that the decision to oppose - with the US - the international demand for an immediate ceasefire was not properly explained to the British public.

Mr Blair's isolated stance is seen as a major reason for the revolt that forced him to announce last week that he would be standing down within 12 months.

The Prime Minister's controversial approach to foreign policy - he has been criticised as President Bush's poodle - has begun to unravel of late. Yesterday, he was pleading in vain with Nato members to pledge 2,000 more troops to the troubled mission in Afghanistan, where 40 British servicemen have been killed in recent weeks.

In a further setback yesterday for the Prime Minister, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, denounced the US prison camp at Guantanamo as "a shocking affront to the principles of democracy". He had previously called it "intolerable and wrong". Mr Blair, though, refused to be drawn on those remarks. He has gone no further than to call the camp an "anomaly", and has steadfastly refused demands to intervene with Mr Bush.

Iraq, where Mr Blair has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr Bush, remains a quagmire, and there are growing doubts among the British military about its ability to fight on two fronts in the "war on terror".

Mr Howells' remarks will fuel the growing exasperation inside and outside Parliament with the Government's foreign policy.

During a two-hour grilling by MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, he admitted that it might have been more effective if the UK had pursued a "dual" policy of simultaneously calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon and trying to find a solution to the crisis.

He also implied that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon had been a military blunder that left Hizbollah stronger.

He told MPs: "I'm not saying that a dual approach might not have worked. I'm not saying that, I'm not dismissing that at all. Maybe it would have worked. What I am saying is we had to take decisions at the time based on what we knew and what intelligence we had. That's why we took those decisions. They were taken in absolute good faith - not in complicity with the Americans or anyone else." Mr Howells, who has a reputation for blunt speaking, went on to admit that it was "a difficult position to defend" and added: "We didn't try to explain it very well."

During the conflict, which left up to 1,400 Lebanese dead and inflicted an estimated £3bn damage on the country, Mr Blair refused every challenge to join calls for a ceasefire.

It was this defiance that fuelled the crisis that overtook Mr Blair's premiership, when 17 Labour MPs, including a defence minister, signed a letter calling on him to resign.

Mr Blair's visit to Beirut this week provoked a demonstration by hundreds of students who accused him of being pro-Israeli. In public, the Prime Minister has defended his position, saying his effectiveness as a mediator in the Middle East depended on good relations with the US and Israeli governments. But privately one of his senior advisers admitted this week: "We got it wrong. We didn't get the balance right. We gave the impression we were against the ceasefire."

Mr Howells' remarks were applauded by both defenders and critics of government policy. Andrew Mackinlay, a member of the committee, said: "It was refreshingly candid. What we got from it was some recognition that if they had their time over again, they would do things differently.

"It gave me the impression that he's of the view that a twin approach could and should have been applied. We're now paying a heavy price for not having done that."

The Liverpool MP Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, said: "There's no doubt that a dual approach would have been the right thing to do both morally and in terms of what is in the country's interest. It's clear to see, if only because of what has been shown during the Blair visit to the Lebanon, that our approach has devalued our standing in the region."

The former foreign office minister Denis MacShane, a Blair supporter, said: "In geopolitical terms, calling for a ceasefire would not have stopped a single bomb from being dropped or a single rocket from being fired, but the whole of Britain was outraged by what they saw on television and there are times when government must consider public opinion."

    Blair hit by Lebanon backlash as minister admits ceasefire 'mistake' , I, 14.9.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1578727.ece

1.45pm

Blair tells Nato: send more troops to Afghanistan

Wednesday September 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
David Fickling

Tony Blair today called on Nato members to contribute more troops to Afghanistan.

The prime minister's appeal came as a difficult campaign to take control of two insurgent-held districts approached its second week.

"Nato is looking at what further requirements there are and ... Nato countries have got a duty to respond to that," Mr Blair said. "It is important that the whole of Nato regards this as their responsibility."

The prime minister was speaking after Washington's ambassador to Nato today urged other members of the military alliance to send forces to help stabilise the country.

"What we are looking to do is to put more forces in so that we can turn the tide faster," Victoria Nuland told BBC radio. "The issue here ... is the fighting capability and the fighting willingness of all allies.

"The US, the UK, Canada, the Dutch, have been in the tough, pointy end of this fight, and more allies need to be willing to be ... in the fighting."

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, underlined the importance of tackling the insurgency, saying "we owe it to the people of Afghanistan to help them finish the job".

"An Afghanistan that does not complete its democratic evolution and become a stable, terror-fighting state is going to come back to haunt us," she said at a news conference with the Canadian foreign minister, Peter MacKay.

"It will come back to haunt our successors and their successors."

Nato governments are meeting in Belgium today to address shortfalls in troop levels in Afghanistan.

The force is currently running at 85% of capacity, and military chiefs have called for more soldiers to tackle an insurgency in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

However, member governments with few or no troops in the troubled provinces argue they are already over-committed in other peacekeeping operations and do not want to be drawn into the bloody battle.

Italy and France are both sending troops to the Unifil peacekeeping force in Lebanon, while Germany already has 2,600 troops stationed in the relatively calm north of Afghanistan.

Twenty-six troops, including 14 British soldiers killed when their Nimrod reconnaissance plane crashed in Kandahar province earlier this month, have died in southern Afghanistan over the past month.

In total, more than 2,000 people have died in fighting in the country in the past year.

Around 20,000 troops from the Afghan army and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force are currently in the country. Some 8,000 of those are Isaf soldiers, and Britain is currently contributing just over 4,000 soldiers to the force.

Over the past fortnight, Isaf troops have been waging a bitter battle in Kandahar in which hundreds of Taliban guerrillas are reported to have been killed.

    Blair tells Nato: send more troops to Afghanistan, G, 13.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1871541,00.html

Heckles, a walk-out and a flash of temper. Blair defiant as he faces unions for final time

· Prime minister demands critics listen 'for once'
· He defends fighting abroad and progress at home

Wednesday September 13, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and David Hencke


Tony Blair bade a rueful farewell to the trade union movement yesterday, facing down hecklers and walkouts to deliver a defiant message that unless the unions recognised the brutal truths of government, the Labour party would end up back in the wasteland of opposition.

At one point the normally equable Mr Blair clearly lost his temper, telling the hall that British troops were fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida at the request of their respective democratic governments.

He demanded that the hecklers listen "for once". "We should be proud of what we are doing to support democrats in Iraq, and are proud of it. And proud also, you should be, of the work trade unions are doing in this country to support trade unions in Iraq and Afghanistan who have got trade union rights for the first time."

He also rounded on RMT delegates for walking out, saying the union had long been opposed to everything the Labour government had done.

Mr Blair ended his address by making an emotional defence of his record, but couched in terms that suggested he knew he was speaking to an audience that was no longer listening. He acknowledged his power was depleted, saying: "One of the good things about being in my position is that I can give people advice, and it is up to them whether they take it or not."

He asked delegates to reflect on the past 10 years and realise that the country had changed for the good.

"Government is a hard, difficult business, but it is a darned sight better than wasting our time passing resolutions that no one ever listens to and people never even think about. That is the brutal truth."

Mr Blair said that during his travels he had met "people, above all else, who recognise that, for all the faults, progress there has been in these 10 years, and if we ever forget it we will repeat the mistakes of the past".

During a question-and-answer session, he defended plans to expand the involvement of the private sector in the NHS, the most controversial issue at the congress."Believe me, the issue at the next election is not whether we have put in sufficient amounts of money, or have been sufficiently supportive of public sector workers," he said.

"The issue will be whether we have managed to deliver the outputs for the money the taxpayer feels they have put in. My concern is that without some of the changes ... we would never have got the waiting list falls we have got.

"If we want to carry on with that investment and not to return to the Tory days of under-investment, we have got to keep the reform going at the same time."

Gordon Brown swung behind Mr Blair, condemning the hecklers, praising the prime minister's speech and insisting that the reform programme, including that for the health service, would continue if he was elected leader. "I urge all to support Tony Blair in what he said about our reforms in health so that we can show that a universal health service free to all at the point of need is renewed and reinvigorated through reform to serve the British people," the text of his speech to a private TUC dinner ran.

Later he denied claims by union leaders that he had digressed from his set speech and not raised the issue of the NHS. He told the Guardian adamantly that he believed in public sector reform to get a modern national health service.

The bulk of Mr Blair's speech was a serious address to the unions on the triple threats of migration, terrorism and fractured domestic communities. "The global Muslim community felt humiliated and angry, pinned between the policy of the US, the UK and its allies on the one hand and the extremists on the other," he said.

The prime minister said the solution lay in peace in Palestine, describing a deal there as an "indispensable precondition for rolling back the momentum of this global terrorist movement which threatens us".

He praised the formation of a national unity government in Palestine as a crucial first step towards restoration of EU funding for the Palestine Authority. The unions' response to Mr Blair's speech was mixed. Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, said: "He has never been that comfortable at congress and it really showed today. His heart was not in it."

Mark Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said he thought the prime minister had been nervous . "It confirms that he has run out of steam, and has run out of ideas," he said.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, described the speech as an anticlimax: "He left the stage without a chance of being nominated for an Oscar."

Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport & General Workers Union, applauded Mr Blair's achievement in winning three elections but said this was a sad end to his career.

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, praised Mr Blair for his "thoughtful and serious speech".

Michael Leahy, general secretary of Community, said: "I don't think people will appreciate the extent of what Tony Blair has done to improve the lives of working people until he has gone."

How jokes fell flat

Tony Blair's response to the hostile reception at the TUC was to depart from his prepared text to make off-the-cuff jokes. But, if timing is the first rule of comedy, did the prime minister have what it takes to turn the heckles to laughter?

0mins, 32secs:

"Thank you very much congress for that kind introduction. More or less ... "

Pause while RMT delegates walk out. Mild laughter

1min, 22secs:

"Congratulations to you to be the first ever black woman to be president of the TUC. It's a tremendous achievement, well done. Especially as I gather you're an Arsenal fan" [Mild titters] "So ... better not put that to the vote ... "

Pauses for laughter following success eight words earlier. Met with stony silence

15mins, 10secs:

"Think we're warming up a bit here"

Medium laughter following extended exchange with hecklers

"Yeah. You were warmed up already, but I'm just getting there"

Met with silence

15mins, 36secs:

"To continue"

Before launching back into prepared text. Few titters

18mins, 56secs:

"The same is true of the issue of migration. I applaud your TUC statement on this issue. It is so close to my own view that I thought of simply reading it out and letting it stand as my speech. That may be both the first and the last time I can say that of a motion to the TUC, but anyway ..."

Joke from prepared text. Prime minister tails off during delivery. Met with stony silence

    Heckles, a walk-out and a flash of temper. Blair defiant as he faces unions for final time, G, 13.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1870977,00.html

4.15pm

'He is a dog and if we see him we will kill him'

Monday September 11, 2006
Clancy Chassay in Beirut
Guardian

Hundreds of angry demonstrators waving Lebanese flags and chanting "down with Blair" gathered to protest at Tony Blair's meeting with Fouad Siniora at the prime minister's office in the heart of Beirut today.

Held back by a line of Lebanese troops and security personnel enforcing a 1km buffer zone around the office, some protesters carried posters reading "Blair, you killer, go to hell" and "The blood of Qana is splashed across your ugly face" in reference to an Israeli attack on a village in south Lebanon during the war that killed 34 children.

National music blared from nearby speakers. "We must take revenge on Blair," one of the organisers roared into the microphone, mirroring an earlier call by the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to take revenge on the Syrian president, Bashar Assad.

"He is a dog and if we see him we will kill him," said a group of young boys wrapped in the flags of Hizbullah and Amal, Lebanon's two main Shia parties. "We want to kill him, really we do," one of them insisted.

The gathering was largely of leftwing groups and Shia parties but there was also a showing from two of Lebanon's largest Christian groups.

Most demonstrators viewed Mr Blair's visit as an attempt to score points at home.

"They hate him in his country and we hate him here - he only came to make himself look good," said Hussein, 29.

Mazen Bassoun, 21, a student organiser from Beirut's southern suburbs, said Mr Blair's policy in the region had been a failure since his first day in office. "The Middle East has been in crisis for more than 50 years. Blair has been the British leader for 10 years and he has done nothing but follow George Bush. Now at the end of his career he is trying to solve the problems of the region with three days of publicity. I don't think he is really taking any measures to stop the violence - it's just a media show for the British people."

Many of the demonstrators were students who had come despite fears they would be met with repression. "A lot of people didn't come after the government warning last night," said Marwan, 22. "We feared the army might become violent."

Some protesters believe Mr Blair's visit will further polarise the country. "His visit will divide the country. Now some ministers will shake his hand and that will make a lot of the country very angry with them," said Malak, a 23-year-old student.

Much of the protesters' anger was directed at the Lebanese government, which they accused of collaborating with the Israelis by delaying the ceasefire to allow Israeli forces to inflict the maximum amount of damage on Hizbullah. "Our government are collaborators," Malak said. "They are the same as Blair."

There was also anger at Blair for allowing planes carrying weapons to refuel in Britain on their way to Israel. "He only talks with the politicians who steal from the country," said Roula Shar, 18. "He is a terrorist. He helped supply Israel with the bombs that killed our children."

Mr Bassoun said he believed Blair's policies had harmed the security of the British people. "I think by his policies he is inviting terrorism to come to Britain. I don't think any Lebanese person would do this, but there are many people in the Middle East who now want to commit terrorism against Britain."

    'He is a dog and if we see him we will kill him', G, 11.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1869975,00.html

Blair Gets Cold Reception in Beirut

September 11, 2006
The New York Times
By CRAIG S. SMITH

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 11 — Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain dodged raucous demonstrators and endured diplomatic snubs today on a visit to this country, while offering help for the Lebanese Army and vowing to renew efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

His message was largely lost on a population angry at his failure to demand an earlier end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which killed nearly 1,200 Lebanese, the vast majority of them civilians.

Hundreds of people gathered to protest near Martyrs Square on the edge of downtown Beirut, which was cordoned off with barbed wire and guarded by hundreds of Lebanese troops with tanks for Mr. Blair’s visit.

"Blair, bow your head before the children you have murdered," read one of the placards in the crowd." Several ministers refused to meet him, including the pro-Syrian speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri. The front pages of most of the country’s newspapers said he was not welcome.

But Mr. Blair defended his policies toward the 34-day war, which ended in a cease-fire in mid-August.

"I could have gone out there and called for it all to stop but it wasn’t going to stop until there was a U.N. resolution that had a framework within which it could stop, in which the real problems could be dealt with," he told reporters at the prime minister’s office with the embattled Lebanese premier, Fouad Siniora, standing beside him.

Mr. Blair said that Britain would send more than $75 million in aid to Lebanon this year and was ready to provide "training, equipment, any help we can give" to Lebanese security forces filling the void left by Hezbollah and departing Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. He said he would use his remaining months as prime minister to work for peace in the Middle East.

Mr. Siniora then urged Mr. Blair to push the United Nations Security Council to put in place an Arab plan that offers Israel peace if it withdraws from Arab land occupied in 1967. "Only by addressing the underlying causes can we guarantee peace and security for the Middle East," Mr. Siniora said.

On Sunday, Mr. Blair said Europe and the United States should work with a Palestinian coalition government including both Fatah and Hamas factions if that government distances itself from the anti-Israeli policies of Hamas that have isolated the current Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The Palestinian president,Mahmoud Abbas, said today that such a government could be formed within days.

Separately, President Jacques Chirac of France said in Helsinki today that China could send up to 1,000 peacekeepers to reinforce the United Nations force meant to enforce the nearly month-old cease-fire.

In Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the deployment of Russian military engineers and sappers to help with the reconstruction of Lebanon. In a meeting with government ministers, Mr. Putin said his administration would submit a request to the upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, which has the authority to approve the deployment of Russian forces abroad.

Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said a battalion of combat engineers — the exact number of which remains unclear — could be ready to leave by the end of the month. He said the soldiers would not be part of the United Nations peacekeeping force.

Meanwhile, the Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called United Nations peacekeepers "enemies of Islam" in a a video tape aired on Arabic Al Jazeera television today.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Moscow for this article.

    Blair Gets Cold Reception in Beirut, NYT, 11.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/world/middleeast/12lebanoncnd.html?hp&ex=1158033600&en=f06e97f79e100b98&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Cabinet turns on Brown in hunt for 'alternative PM'

· Blair attacks 'mendacious' Chancellor
· Brown declares he's ready for a contest

Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer
Gaby Hinsliff and Ned Temko

Gordon Brown's long-held dream of taking over as Prime Minister received a significant blow this weekend after it was revealed that up to 10 cabinet ministers are discussing backing an 'anyone but Gordon' candidate and that Tony Blair will not give the Chancellor a personal endorsement.

Senior government figures are threatening to make the contest a bitter referendum on Brown's personal integrity after last week's vicious bout of infighting. They spent Friday discussing their choice of candidate and the mechanics of a bid after concluding they could no longer support him.

This follows a serious breakdown between the two rival camps, culminating, according to one very close confidant of Tony Blair, in the Prime Minister telling friends: 'I have never known how mendacious he [Gordon] was, how full of mendacity.'

Cabinet ministers spoke to The Observer before Blair's warning yesterday to both sides to suspend their damaging personal attacks - in which he also surprisingly let slip that he expected the next election to be in 2009. The Prime Minister also condemned the 'irredeemably old-fashioned' politics of MPs plotting against him and called for openness in debating Labour's future. This was seen as a signal that discussion will not be repressed by what Charles Clarke called Brown's 'control freak' instincts.

The Chancellor will respond bullishly today, using an interview with BBC1's Sunday AM to say he will welcome an 'inclusive debate' and promise a cabinet of 'all the talents'. He will suggest Clarke could once again return to high office and deny any involvement in the plotting against Blair.

However, it emerged last night that Tom Watson, the minister who signed a letter demanding Blair clarify his departure date, visited Browns' Scottish home last Monday. Watson said he was visiting their new baby, but further evidence of what was already known to be a close relationship will fuel suspicions.

The cabinet source said while they had not chosen a rival candidate yet, the last week had tipped the balance to someone of 'credibility and stature' standing against Brown. Alan Johnson, Alan Milburn, John Reid and Charles Clarke are potential names.

'Until the beginning of this week, most of us would have ended up supporting him [Brown] because there wasn't anyone else,' said a source involved in the discussions. 'Now almost for sure, because of his behaviour, there will be a serious challenge from someone within cabinet and he's only got himself to blame.' Asked how many of the cabinet would back such a candidate, the minister said: 'Now, I think half a dozen, but I think it could be more like 10 [when a candidate is picked]. This week has been the cathartic moment. It's not about policy: the question is who has the character, the personal qualities. Gordon is his own worst enemy.'

Brown's behaviour showed he lacked the 'honesty, integrity and trustworthiness' required, the source added. While declining to name those who would be willing to back an anti-Brown candidate, those with most to lose under Brown include John Reid, Hilary Armstrong, John Hutton, Lord Falconer and Hazel Blears.

The Prime Minister is not now expected to publicly bless Brown's candidacy, and a senior minister said even a repeat of previous glowing testimonials were now out: 'He will describe him as having made an immense contribution, because he has, but I'm afraid that events of this week have changed things fundamentally and for ever. We have underestimated the extent to which he was prepared to bring the house down in pursuit of his own personal ambitions.'

Brown's allies will, however, be reassured by an Ipsos/MORI poll for The Observer which found voters rated him more trustworthy, having better judgment and as more down-to-earth than most politicians, including Blair.

Brown told the News of the World last night it was 'nonsense' to say that he egged on the revolt, and suggested that his critics were motivated by old disputes. He added that any Chancellor 'is in the difficult position of having to tell his colleagues "no" '.

Blair yesterday demanded an end to the bloodletting, telling the annual Progress think-tank conference in London: 'We are not going to win if we have personal attacks by anybody on anyone, because it turns the public off.' However he added that Labour must not become 'defensive' about ideas after he had gone, and must be 'unafraid' of reaching out to the public.

If there are further public attacks on Brown, a delegation of Labour MPs is said to be prepared to go to Downing Street this week to demand that Blair quit. Downing Street sources stressed Blair had phoned ministers and friends yesterday to demand self-restraint.

    Cabinet turns on Brown in hunt for 'alternative PM' , O, 10.9.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1869062,00.html

Unwritten constitution

The events of a traumatic week reinforce basic truths about British politics

September 09, 2006
The Times

A week is a long time in politics but a short stretch in political history. The seven days that have passed between Tony Blair’s interview with The Times and the aftershocks of yesterday have been extraordinary. Yet, on the other hand, they have hardly been unprecedented. They have largely served to show that the old rules of British politics still apply in a modern context and that our unusual, allegedly antiquated, unwritten constitution is more robust than regulations set out on paper.

For what this explosive episode has demonstrated again is that the great arbiter in the British system of government is time. It is time, more than anything else, that has closed in on Mr Blair. There is a natural limit to prime ministerial tenures in Britain, which, in reality, is as restrictive on an incumbent as the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution (which bars a president from being elected more than twice). Time, and relentless, wearying scrutiny ensure in Britain that a party and the public can only endure so much of any prime minister, no matter how charming or how determined.

Time is, above all else, what counts against this Prime Minister. After nine years in office, new speeches and initiatives inevitably seem stale, colleagues yearn for a change (perhaps unwisely) and the cadre of enemies expands to overtake the collection of remaining friends. Mr Blair was always opposed by the ultra-Left of his party (a factor that reflects well on him) but time has meant that its ranks have been swollen by those whom he first hired then fired and by others whom he never promoted. New rounds of MPs enter Parliament with their own perspectives. Time is the knock on the door in the middle of the night that must be answered. Time has made its unavoid-able call on Downing Street.

There has been much chatter about “presidentialism” in Britain’s political life and how Mr Blair has marginalised the Government and the House of Commons. What this week has surely illustrated is how facile that generalisation is in practice. The Prime Minister was obliged to compromise on his resignation date by resignations from an unknown junior minister and seven anonymous aides, and the threat that others would follow them. The traditional norms apply. A prime minister must retain the backing of his MPs and party to survive in power. Britain is not a permanent elective dictatorship. Ours is not, despite all the hype, a de facto “presidential” model.

Whether there will be a stable and orderly transition from the so-called President Blair to the so-called President Brown should become clearer over the next week. Mr Brown is closer to the crown than ever but the chaos and factionalism of the past week has made it acceptable for his opponents to begin to make statements about him in public that they previously would only ever have whispered in private (and then deny having made).

Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, has obviously been deeply irritated by Mr Brown’s unpresidential, unguarded, “stupid” smile, though it is well known that Mr Clarke has difficulty keeping impulsive thoughts to himself. What should be of more concern to the Chancellor is the prospect of the engaging Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, standing against him for the leadership. If Mr Brown does not pass the presidential personality test (political generosity being among the questions), Mr Johnson will have no choice but to run as well.

    The events of a traumatic week reinforce basic truths about British politics, Ts, 9.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-2349382,00.html

Brown to PM: time to back me

Poll: Two-thirds of voters want a contest to choose next premier

Saturday September 9, 2006
Guardian
Michael White and Patrick Wintour

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday attempted to stem Labour's damaging public leadership split as the chancellor pressed in private for No 10's early endorsement of his candidacy.

It is the crucial concession which would head off Mr Brown's fear that angry Blairites will field a serious rival contender for the party crown when Mr Blair finally steps down early next year.

But Mr Brown's hopes for an unchallenged succession are not shared by voters, according to a new ICM poll for the Guardian. It shows that more than two thirds of the electorate want a contest, with only a quarter wanting a coronation.

However, the poll also shows that half of all voters want Mr Blair out by the end of the year. A third of Labour voters also want him to have quit by then.

Both men have been shocked by the vehemence of the anger unleashed by partisans on both sides in the past tumultuous week. The former home secretary Charles Clarke yesterday inflamed the situation further with a public warning that he - and other Labour big beasts - will not automatically back a Brown premiership until "he shows that he can lead".

Mr Blair and Mr Brown talked by phone to each other and senior colleagues yesterday. Both urged them to avoid inflammatory statements in the wake of Mr Blair's public pledge to go next year, precisely because the formula is so fragile. No 11 is still pressing privately for a more specific timetable which No 10 rejects.

It also wants Mr Blair's endorsement, possibly in his speech at Labour's Manchester conference on September 24.

Though Mr Blair has sometimes said he would ultimately endorse Mr Brown in private conversation, he will not say so at this stage. Personal ill-feeling remains too high on both sides and No 10 claims a huge surge of support for Mr Blair over the humiliation he has suffered.

While the prime minister's camp thinks the chancellor's forces have overplayed their hand, the Brownites are braced for a counter-attack in some Sunday papers. If pressed too far they may organise a backbench deputation of "men in grey suits" to tell Mr Blair that his time is up. Brownites claim No 10 is still seeking a credible alternative to the chancellor, and Mr Clarke called Alan Milburn "leadership material" while denying plans to run himself.

Yesterday Mr Brown even placed a conciliatory call to Mr Clarke after his public warning that the chancellor must "prove his fitness" to succeed Mr Blair.

However, Mr Clarke renewed his attack in an interview in today's Daily Telegraph, in which he branded Mr Brown a "control freak" who is "very, very difficult to work with". He also condemned the chancellor for failing to halt the plotting which forced Mr Blair into his announcement this week.

But he denied suggestions that his words had been prompted by the prime minister. "I'm not working in league with Tony Blair or No 10," he said. "I'm trying to give a reasonable, dispassionate view of what I think the issues are."

Mr Clarke's attacks, which angered and puzzled colleagues with their vehemence, reinforced No 11 demands that Mr Blair rein in his so-called "outriders" such as Mr Milburn and Stephen Byers, who stand accused of disrupting the promised orderly transition by their attacks.

As part of the backlash, Frank Field, the maverick ex-minister, also condemned Mr Brown's "arrogance". One Labour heavyweight rung for help by Mr Brown said later: "We must ensure Gordon does not get pushed further back among advisers who give him bad advice. It's important he doesn't go back into his bunker."

Brownites believe the tide of backbench and party sentiment for an early resolution of the succession is now running their way.

    Brown to PM: time to back me, G, 9.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1868488,00.html

Charles Clarke interview

Attack on 'stupid, stupid' Brown revives Battle of Downing St

Ministers say old feud fuelled former home secretary's blast

Saturday September 9, 2006
Guardian
Tania Branigan, political correspondent

Charles Clarke yesterday baffled colleagues by unleashing an all-out assault on Gordon Brown, accusing him of "absolutely stupid" behaviour during the leadership crisis and warning that the chancellor needed to prove his fitness to succeed Tony Blair as prime minister.

Ministers across the party suggested his remarks were fuelled primarily by long-standing disagreements with Mr Brown, and dismissed the idea that he was acting as an agent provocateur for Blairites determined to find an alternative leader. They described Mr Clarke's intervention as baffling, unhelpful and ill-advised.

Mr Clarke made several pointed criticisms of the chancellor in a speech in London this week. But his remarks yesterday went far further. He said Mr Brown's succession was not inevitable and he had failed to work with cabinet colleagues, adding that MPs were "worried about Gordon" and needed reassurance.

The former home secretary said MPs had been angered by pictures of Mr Brown grinning on Wednesday, at the height of the furore surrounding Mr Blair's future. "A lot of people are very upset and cross about that. It was absolutely stupid: a stupid, stupid thing to do," he said.

"He is talented and brilliant but there are these little incidences like the grin in the car that build up a terrible picture."

Mr Clarke told the Evening Standard: "What he should have done was come out strongly and distance himself from [backbench rebels]. He could have done that with a click of his fingers. This has been complete madness."

He went on to tell today's Daily Telegraph that Mr Brown was a "control freak" who might lack "the bottle" to become prime minister.

However, allies of Mr Brown refused to take the bait and played down suggestions of a Blairite plot. "Charles is naturally provocative, but I don't think his remarks will be welcomed by anybody bar the Tories. I don't think he is easy to put up to things; he's very independent-minded," said one minister supportive of Mr Brown.

A Blairite colleague added: "Charles is just doing his own thing in his own way; he is not part of a concerted effort. He's kicked both Tony and Gordon recently."

Mr Clarke attacked the prime minister for a failure of leadership after being sacked as home secretary. The timing of that criticism - shortly before the local elections in May - did not win him friends; one MP yesterday labelled him "petulant".

Mr Clarke, who was Neil Kinnock's chief of staff when Mr Brown first arrived in parliament, has had particularly difficult relations with the chancellor.

He urged Mr Blair to run for the leadership in 1994 and told friends afterwards: "I started out believing that Gordon should not run for the leadership, but I have subsequently come round to the view that it would have been better if he had and actually been beaten. That would have humiliated him and meant that Tony did not owe him a debt. There was never the remotest chance that Gordon would be elected leader of the party."

That remark is unlikely to be forgotten by the chancellor's allies. The two men also clashed while in government together, in particular over tuition fees and identity cards.

But the former home secretary has always retained his independence from the prime minister, and several colleagues thought he might be hoping to return to government under Mr Brown's leadership. One Blair loyalist said yesterday: "I'm surprised by the strength of what he said ... I never had a sense it was a feud in the way it was with Gordon and Milburn or Reid."

Few took Mr Clarke's remark that Alan Milburn was "leadership material" as a serious endorsement; the two have never been particularly close and Mr Milburn is no longer seen as a credible challenger. One minister suggested Mr Clarke was more likely to back Alan Johnson. Nor did they believe that Mr Clarke was planning a leadership bid himself. "If he was planning to stand, pissing people off would not be the right way to go about it," said a friend.

Frank Field, a former minister, echoed Mr Clarke's remarks in an interview with BBC Radio 4's World at One: "I think the chancellor's behaviour this week raises in a serious form some of the questions that a number of people, myself included, have about the chancellor."

One minister - not a paid-up Blairite - expressed surprise at Mr Clarke's comments before adding: "They're interesting and mostly right; there are definitely people who wonder about all the moody stuff and whether it's really compatible with being prime minister."

What Clarke said

'A lot of [MPs] are worried about Gordon and they need to be reassured ... He has to show that he can lead. The jury has been out on that'

What it means

Blairites warn that Mr Brown is a divisive figure who will not be able to unite the party when Mr Blair finally steps aside.

What Clarke said

'For a year I have urged him to set out a course openly. So has Tony. It is down to him now'

What it means

Allies of the prime minister say that if the chancellor wants to be leader he should say so publicly, and explain what he would do in the role.

What Clarke said

"I do not have a high opinion of the post [of deputy leader]. The important thing is to get the leader right."

What it means

Some suggest Mr Brown could be teamed with a younger, English, more affable figure to increase his appeal to the electorate. Mr Clarke implies that the role of deputy is largely irrelevant to most voters.

What Clarke said

"What he should have done was come out strongly and distance himself from them [the junior members of the government who resigned on Wednesday]. He could have done that with a click of his fingers. This has been complete madness."

What it means

Blairites and other critics of Mr Brown are furious at what they see as an attempted coup, and want to force him to show his hand.

What Clarke said

"Part of the problem is that he lacks confidence. He is nervous."

What it means

Reminiscent of the infamous Blairite briefing that the chancellor had "psychological flaws", it hints at rivals' private accusations that Mr Brown sometimes give the appearance of being paranoid and insecure.

What Clarke said

"[Gordon becoming leader] depends very much on the circumstances of the election and Gordon setting out his views positively and setting a course for his leadership."

What it means

Those who oppose Mr Brown fear his leadership bid is unstoppable, but are desperate to find a challenger.

What Clarke said

'We will not succeed if some new leader or deputy leader produces, like a rabbit out of a hat or Marilyn Monroe out of a birthday cake, a series of policies and pronouncements for us all to admire'

What it means

Gordon Brown is frequently accused of being secretive and keeping his cards close to his chest. Supporters hint he plans surprising policy announcements when he takes over.

What Clarke said

'[I want] to encourage my party to address openly the whole range of policy questions we face'

What it means

The Chancellor is concerned that Blair allies are attempting to box him in to a set of policies, tying his hands when he takes office.

What Clarke said

'It would be wrong to say that there are no circumstances at all under which I would [stand for leader]. It depends on what happens between now and Tony standing down and that is largely in Gordon's hands'

What it means

A thinly veiled threat that the Chancellor will face a Blairite challenger if he antagonises the prime minister and others any further.

    Attack on 'stupid, stupid' Brown revives Battle of Downing St, G, 9.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1868550,00.html

11.15am

Clarke: Brown must prove fitness to be PM

Friday September 8, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

The uneasy truce in the Labour leadership battle was broken this morning with an attack on the chancellor for acting in an "absolutely stupid" manner in the past few days by former cabinet heavyweight Charles Clarke.

With the dust barely settled on yesterday's opaque but conciliatory statements from Gordon Brown and Tony Blair on the timing of Mr Blair's departure from office, the former home secretary warned that even after nine years as chancellor Mr Brown still had to "prove his fitness" to be prime minister.

And he sang the praises of a possible Blairite challenger, Alan Milburn, calling him "leadership material."

Harriet Harman, tipped for a cabinet post under a Brown premiership, said that she was "angry" with Mr Clarke's attack and added: "Everyone should now shut up."

She told BBC News 24: "Having been a hugely successful party in government we appear to be about to chuck it away."

With the Conservative leader, David Cameron, calling the situation "shambolic and deeply unsatisfactory", it was left to the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, to call for a period of "calm and reflection" in the party.

Mr Clarke, who was sacked by Mr Blair as home secretary earlier this year, launched his attack on Mr Brown's character in today's London Evening Standard.

He told the paper: "Part of the problem is that he lacks confidence. He is nervous.

"That could all change when the burden of waiting for the job is lifted form his shoulders and I think it probably will. But the problem is, nobody really knows.

"He is not where he should be at the moment. He is talented and brilliant but there are these little incidences like the grin in the car that build up a terrible picture."

Referring to pictures of a grinning chancellor in the back of his car after he left the back entrance of Downing Street on Wednesday, Mr Clarke said: "A lot of people are very upset and cross about that.

"It was absolutely stupid: a stupid, stupid thing to do."

Asked about Mr Clarke's comments to the Standard, Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "I have absolutely no comment whatsoever to make. We get on with the business of government."

At lower ranks within the party the row rumbled on, with Glenda Jackson, a prominent backbencher, criticising Mr Clarke and others around the PM for preferring a future under Mr Cameron than Mr Brown.

Ms Jackson hit back swiftly: "Charles Clarke's comments seem to prove what everybody has long feared - that there are people close to the prime minister who would prefer to see David Cameron as prime minister rather than Gordon Brown.

"The party will be watching very closely over the next few hours to see the extent to which Tony Blair distances himself from these comments."

With the TUC conference - to be addressed by Mr Blair on Tuesday - starting at the weekend, a survey of 1,000 Amicus activists showed that three out of four wanted an immediate change of leadership, blaming Mr Blair's "indifference" to repeated warnings of grassroots alienation.

Brendan Barber, the TUC's general secretary, said that the exact timetable of Mr Blair's departure was less important than how the change was managed.

Mr Barber told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is self-evident to everybody that the kind of frenzy that we've seen over the last week has done the government nothing but damage."

Mr Blair said yesterday that next week's TUC conference would be his last as Labour leader - "probably to the relief of both of us".

Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Amicus, the manufacturing union, said: "The current mess in Westminster is the tip of the iceberg.

"Our workplace reps are Labour's footsoldiers and they are now in open revolt, such is their frustration over government policy on the issues that affect them, their colleagues and their communities.

"Unless something changes, Labour will lose the next election."

The chancellor wrote an article in today's edition of the best-selling Scottish tabloid, the Daily Record, attacking the Scottish National party and singing the praises of the English-Scottish union as symbolised by his own marriage to an English woman.

He declared: "I know from my own experience of marrying someone born in Beaconsfield that intermarriage between the Scots and English is stronger than ever.

"Yet the scale of this growing connection is barely understood."

And he launched a ferocious attack on the Scottish National party.

"The SNP want to drag us apart and impose a divorce when literally millions of Scots have relatives in England."

    Clarke: Brown must prove fitness to be PM, G, 8.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1867802,00.html

3.30pm

'Proud' Brown reasserts his Britishness

Friday September 8, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland and agencies


Gordon Brown today made a case for British national unity as he celebrated the benefits of Scotland's partnership with England within the UK.
The chancellor was speaking as the political row over the length of Tony Blair's premiership continued to rage on.

Mr Brown, MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, used a speech delivered within sight of Edinburgh castle to reassert his own Britishness and to put the Scottish Labour party on a war footing to take on the Scottish Nationalists at next year's Holyrood elections.

The SNP are gunning for Mr Brown's party as they hope to make capital of Labour's disarray and help dislodge the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition which governs Scotland in next year's Scottish parliamentary elections.

Mr Brown sidestepped Labour's leadership wrangling as the fallout over Mr Blair's departure - which Mr Blair confirmed yesterday will take place within a year - continued back in London.

Today, Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, attacked Mr Brown, claiming that he had been "absolutely stupid" during the crisis engulfing Mr Blair and should have distanced himself from the rebel Labour MPs who wrote a letter seeking the prime minister's resignation.

In his Edinburgh speech, Mr Brown, who is Scottish, sought to make the case for the union and highlight the benefits of devolution.

"As Scotland prepares for the third elections to its Scottish parliament, I believe the people of Britain will see the positive case for us; stronger together, weaker apart," he told an audience of around 50 Labour activists.

Mr Brown lauded the partnership at work "between the Scottish executive led by Jack McConnell and the UK government led by Tony Blair". Mr Brown went on to highlight the economic advances that Scotland had seen since the Tory years, with falling unemployment, lower inflation and interest rates and gross domestic product and living standards rising fast.

But much of the speech dwelt on the personal ties between people living in England and Scotland as a rebuttal to the Scottish National Party, which wants full independence from the rest of the UK.

"The common view is that Scotland and England are moving apart, not closer together," said the chancellor.

"But in family connections this is simply not true. Around two and a half million Scottish residents are either English themselves or have relatives who are English.

"For the first time ever, almost half of Scots have relatives from south of the border."

Under Scottish independence, he claimed, 800,000 Scots in England and 400,000 Englishmen and women in Scotland would have to choose which passport to hold.

"And two million people would have to classify their relatives as foreigners," he said.

"With family connections between Scotland and England stronger now than ever, the reality of life is not some obsession with a border between Scotland and England.

"The reality is ever-closer connections between the nations, and I find it difficult to believe that to undermine such connections makes any sense whatsoever."

The chancellor also took a swipe at the Tories, in effect accusing David Cameron's party of being anti-British.

Under Mr Cameron, the Tories have revived the "West Lothian question", which argues that, as a result of devolution, only England's constituency MPs should vote on matters affecting England.

Currently, all elected MPs across the UK vote on bills passed in parliament, irrespective of where the legislation will eventually apply.

"Nationalism wants a Scotland separate from the UK and wants to force Scotland to choose between Scotland and Britain, just as today's Conservatism wants English votes for English laws and wants England to choose between England and Britain," said Mr Brown.

"For all my political life I have stood up for Britain.

"I stand here again today, to speak up for Britain and our Britishness, and for the values that make us proud of our Britishness."

    'Proud' Brown reasserts his Britishness, G, 8.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1868184,00.html

In public, apologies and harmony. In private, a deal

Possible February announcement, quit in May and new PM in place by June

Friday September 8, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour

A sullen and potentially unstable truce was struck yesterday between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown after the prime minister reluctantly bowed to the demands of the chancellor and rebel MPs by promising to step down within 12 months.

Though neither man elaborated on the timetable for his departure and insisted no secret deal had been reached, it is understood that both sides will now accept Mr Blair announcing that he will step down in February. This would see Mr Blair leaving Downing Street in early May having achieved 10 years in office, but still giving enough time for his successor to make an impact before parliament goes into its long summer recess.

Until then, Mr Blair will still have to face opponents within the parliamentary party who claim it is untenable for him to try to lead Labour in May's Scottish and Welsh elections. But the prime minister would prefer to stay on until then, and will use a speech tomorrow to reveal what he wants to achieve in his final months.

The week's tumult at Westminster, which left Mr Blair accusing his chancellor of blackmail, appeared to subside yesterday when the two men broke their silence and gave conciliatory statements.

Mr Blair apologised for the last few days, admitting the bitter infighting "has not been our finest hour, to be frank".

In his brief statement, made during a visit to a London school, Mr Blair said: "I think what is important now is that we understand that it's the interests of the country that come first and we move on. I would have preferred to do this in my own way but it has been pretty obvious from what many of my cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week.

"The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader, the next TUC conference next week will be my last TUC - probably to the relief of both of us. But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date and I'll do it in the interests of the country and depending on the circumstances of the time."

He also had a message for his rebel MPs, saying: "It's the public that comes first and it's the country that matters, and we can't treat the public as irrelevant bystanders in a subject as important as who is their prime minister."

Hours before Mr Blair's effective surrender, Mr Brown started to bury the hatchet, saying: "When I met the prime minister yesterday, I said to him - as I've said on many occasions and I repeat today - it is for him to make the decision. This cannot and should not be about private arrangements but what is in the best interests of our party and, most of all, the best interests of our country."

Mr Brown's allies, who battled with Mr Blair for a specific departure date, described the prime minister's climbdown as a "welcome first step".

Welsh and Scottish MPs are now likely privately to agitate for him to be pushed out early next year.

A first public test of the Labour mood will come when Mr Blair speaks to the TUC on Tuesday after a three-day trip to the Middle East.

The Treasury insisted the issue of the precise departure date should be left to one side for some months, and dealt with internally in the party.

Mr Brown also distanced himself from some of his allies such as the former defence minister Doug Henderson who initially responded to Mr Blair's promise to leave within 12 months by saying it changed nothing, and insisting Mr Blair will have to be gone by the beginning of next year.

In the twilight of Mr Blair's premiership, the Treasury is now going to seek close cooperation with No 10 over policy, machinery of government and the party's organisation.

    In public, apologies and harmony. In private, a deal, G, 8.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1867403,00.html

The deal

Brown wins a bankable promise on Blair's exit date

· Political defeat for PM after week of turmoil
· Chancellor could take over leadership in mid-June

Friday September 8, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour

For astrologists, history teachers and journalists in pursuit of exclusives, dates matter: especially the date at which Tony Blair quits.

Various newspapers have emblazoned May 31 and May 4 as likely times the prime minister and his deputy, John Prescott, will stand aside from the Labour leadership. Yet as Mr Blair made clear yesterday, no final date has been agreed between himself and the chancellor.

The prime minister thought there was a broad understanding that he would stand down next year. But this week's convulsions were provoked because Mr Brown wanted something said in public: a bankable irrevocable wriggle-free promise. And yesterday he got it.

Only 490 days since the general election, well short of Mr Blair's promise to serve a full term, he has set out his end date and there is no turning back. It is a big political defeat for the prime minister, and, in the words of one of his longest and possibly over-emotional allies, "marks the end of this phase of new Labour".

From the Treasury's viewpoint, one acceptable timetable would be a statement from Mr Blair at the party's spring conference on February 16 that he will stand down after the May elections in Wales and Scotland, three days after he chalks up 10 years as prime minister. A six-week election campaign involving as many as a million party members and levy payers might allow Mr Brown to take over in mid-June.

This would give the new leader six weeks to attack David Cameron at prime minister's questions. The difficulty is that it would give him only 42 of his much-fabled first 100 days to have an impact before the political season fizzles out. Mr Brown would like longer but may fear it is too dangerous to agitate for it.

Not so many Welsh and Scottish MPs, assembly members and parliamentarians, are likely to be unhappy with a May 4 resignation. Labour is in coalition with the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, and is trailing in the polls.

Many Labour members of the Scottish parliament do not want Mr Blair anywhere near the election. Similarly, initial reports from Wales suggest many big figures in the Welsh Labour party would prefer the prime minister to go earlier.

There is another calculation for Mr Brown. If he is in charge at the time of the May elections and they go badly, it will be a dreadful launch pad for his leadership.

The feeling in the Brown camp is that they will not push for an earlier departure, but that if the party wants one they will accept that verdict - even if the elections then go badly for Mr Brown.

Both sides insisted yesterday that no private deal had been reached, and that Mr Blair's public announcement emerged from the two meetings in No 10 on Wednesday. Mr Prescott also, belatedly, played a role. He decided the crisis was so deep that he needed to come back early from holiday in Portugal, missing a family funeral. He saw Mr Blair at 8.30am yesterday, and spoke to Mr Brown on the telephone, playing his much-promised honest broker role.

The chancellor's supporters still have questions, not just about the date but also the process by which the two camps will cooperate between now and then. The chancellor wants signs that the orderly transition is back on track.

The Treasury wants to see greater collaboration on policy, and signs that party machinery is being jointly run by the two men. Allies insist this is not a demand for a dual premiership, and that it would be absurd for Mr Brown to try to muscle in on international negotiations, especially the upcoming Northern Ireland talks.

The Treasury would also like to see No 10 distance itself from attacks on Mr Brown by the Blairite ultras such as Alan Milburn. They say this is not an attempt to muzzle anyone, or prevent Mr Milburn speaking at conferences, but that No 10 should distance itself so the attacks lose credibility. "We don't want another outbreak of the Milburn," said one aide.

Brownites are also eager to see Mr Blair praise the chancellor's leadership qualities in the ways he has in the past. They would like a harmonious party conference in which the speeches of Mr Blair and Mr Brown are coordinated.

But many Blairites find this kind of talk offensive, and argue that the way Mr Brown has behaved in the past few days has increased the likelihood of a heavyweight challenger coming forward. The preferred Stop Brown candidate is David Miliband, the environment secretary, who would be seen to be a break with the past. But the truth is that the independent-minded Mr Miliband is not going to stand.

So for the Blairites, the clock is ticking and they appear to have no real strategy for survival.

    Brown wins a bankable promise on Blair's exit date, G, 8.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1867387,00.html

4.30pm

MPs' reaction: 'It is unnecessary to commit regicide'

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


Reaction to Tony Blair's statement from MPs and ministers

Doug Henderson, Labour MP for Newcastle North and close Scottish ally of Mr Brown


"It does not seem to me that the public know any more about the prime minister's retirement plans. People keep saying to me that the Labour party must have a clear direction forward with clear priorities and a new leader before the elections in 2007."

Peter Hain, Northern Ireland secretary


"Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are class acts, and I have no doubt that when the time comes next year, the party will choose Gordon to succeed Tony - and it's right that he should.

"After a difficult week, it is now time for us to get back to work and to focus not just on the task of securing an unprecedented fourth term, but also on delivering the third-term policy agenda on which we were elected only last year.

"Implementing those policies means an orderly handover, not a chaotic putsch. We were elected on a programme of government, and we owe it to the voters to deliver it, not to engage in prolonged navel-gazing."

Karen Buck, Labour MP and organiser of letter backing the PM's refusal to set an exact departure date


"I don't think he can be more specific because the minute he actually says it will be on May 3, all the speculation then says, 'Why not March 3, why not February 3?'

"Effectively, he is saying 'we are in the last rungs of my premiership'.

"That changeover will take place and I hope that my colleagues will agree ... that it is more important, given that we are a few months away from a leadership contest, that that takes place without months and months of damaging comments and speculation.

"It is unnecessary to commit regicide."

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat leader


"The prime minister has only partially resolved the ambiguity. "He has set a time limit but not named a date. Speculation will continue, while the authority of government drains away."

David Winnick, veteran Labour backbencher


"The chancellor's remarks today should mean that the hysteria amongst a few members of the parliamentary Labour party over when exactly the prime minister should leave No 10 should now stop.

"Inevitably, there is the cynical feeling - justified or otherwise - that while some of the PPSs (parliamentary private secretaries) who resigned at least were acting with genuine motives, others perhaps were possibly looking for what other ministerial positions are likely to follow the change at No 10.

"The main thing is to ensure the change, which clearly now will come next year, comes about without leaving behind a legacy of bitterness which otherwise could linger for some considerable time after a change of prime minister."

Stephen Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North and Blair loyalist


"He didn't sound to me like a man running out of steam, he seemed like a man at the peak of his powers.

"He was pretty damned angry. He was apologising to the country and drawing the attention of the people who have been playing these kamikaze capers to the fact that you cannot factor out the British electorate.

"What he was saying was, 'Get on with the business of governance. Grow up.' It was a very strong statement."

Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary


"I warmly welcome what both the prime minister and chancellor have said today and hope that we can now put behind us the damaging divisions of the last week and get back to what really matters - improving the lives of the people of our country."

Sir Stuart Bell, Labour backbencher


"There is a sense of relief in the parliamentary Labour party.

"The prime minister has said very clearly he will not be here next September. Gordon Brown has accepted that situation.

"We have the Queen's speech on November 15. We are going to settle down, get on with policy and have a policy debate as to where we should be going when the prime minister does step down.

"I think the Labour party had a nervous breakdown in public this week and that's why the PM apologised to the country. I think those who signed the letter saying he ought to resign ought to feel very ashamed of themselves because they haven't changed the situation."

    MPs' reaction: 'It is unnecessary to commit regicide', G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1867122,00.html

3.45pm update

Blair: I'll be gone within a year

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and James Sturcke

Tony Blair today confirmed that he will retire as prime minister within the next 12 months, but refused to name a precise date.

After 48 hours of frenzied speculation and plotting at the heart of government, the prime minister bowed to pressure, making a filmed statement at a north London school.

Mr Blair apologised to the public on behalf of the Labour party this week's events, calling them "not our finest hour, to be frank".

His statement came an hour after the chancellor, Gordon Brown, told reporters in Glasgow that he would "support" Mr Blair's decision but warned there could be no more "private arrangements".

However, with elections in Scotland and Wales - as well as Mr Blair's own tenth anniversary as PM - coming up in May, the statements from the premier and chancellor appear to leave the exact sequence of a departure, and a leadership contest, still opaque.

Mr Blair made it clear he would announce his departure "at a future date", saying: "I'm not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date, and I will do that in the interests of the country."

Mr Brown is meeting Scottish Labour MSPs in Edinburgh tonight, while both he and Mr Blair will address the TUC conference next week.

"I would have preferred to do this in my own way - but the next party conference in the next couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader," the prime minister said. He joked: "The next TUC will be my last TUC - probably to the relief of both of us."

Shunning a public press conference with reporters outside the school, Mr Blair, looking relaxed, recorded a filmed statement with the Press Association.

"I think it's important for the Labour party to understand that it's the public that comes first and it's the country that matters, and we can't treat the country as an irrelevant bystander in a matter as important as who their prime minister should be," he said.

"The first thing I'd like to do is to apologise actually on behalf of the Labour party for the last week which, with everything that's going on and in the world, has not been our finest hour, to be frank."

Mr Blair's statement came at just after 3pm. At 2pm, Mr Brown told reporters: "I want to make it absolutely clear today that when I met the prime minister yesterday, I said to him, as I have said on many occasions to him and I repeat today, that it is for him to make the decision.

"I said also to him, and I make clear again today, that I will support him in the decisions he makes, that this cannot and should not be about private arrangements but what is in the best interests of our party and, most of all, the best interests of our country."

However, Doug Henderson, a Scottish MP close to Mr Brown, appeared to suggest that the prime minister's statement had done little to change the situation.

"It does not seem to me that the public know any more about the prime minister's retirement plans," he said. "People keep saying to me that the Labour party must have a clear direction forward with clear priorities and a new leader before the elections in 2007."

There was no indication that he was speaking with Mr Brown's approval.

The leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, today became the most senior cabinet minister to suggest that Mr Blair would leave in May, two years after his historic third election victory, but warned that Labour was on the edge of an "abyss".

Today's Evening Standard claims the prime minister will go by May 4, while yesterday's Sun plumped for May 31.

Mr Straw said it was "reasonable" to expect Mr Blair to serve for at least two years after his third election victory.

He said the prime minister would stand down in time to allow his successor to be in place before the start of next summer, but delivered a warning over the conflict within Labour.

"This is damaging to the Labour party, but it is damaging above and beyond that to the interests of the country, and that is why everybody has to settle down and ... accept what the prime minister has said or [what] has been said on his behalf," Mr Straw told the BBC's Today programme.

In Mr Blair's Sedgefield constituency, his agent, John Burton, accused Mr Brown of "stabbing the prime minister in the back".

The leftwing Labour MP John McDonnell, who launches his official leadership campaign in Manchester tonight, welcomed the "clarification" of Mr Blair's timetable.

However, he warned that "members of the Labour party will not accept a backroom deal to install Gordon Brown as a proto-leader of the party in advance of them having any chance to cast their votes in a democratic election".

In an interview published in the New Statesman today but carried out before the current crisis, the environment secretary, David Miliband, said the "great mass" of the Labour movement was "excited" about the prospect of a Brown premiership.

There was no immediate reaction from the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats.

    Blair: I'll be gone within a year, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866600,00.html

3.45pm

Tony Blair's statement in full

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

This is the full text of Tony Blair's remarks on the timing of his resignation during his visit to the Quinton Kynaston School in St John's Wood, north London:

"The first thing I would like to do is to apologise, actually, on behalf of the Labour party for the last week, which with everything that is going on back here and in the world, has not been our finest hour, to be frank.

"But I think what is important now is that we understand that it's the interests of the country that come first and we move on.

"Now, as for my timing and date of departure, I would have preferred to do this in my own way, but as has been pretty obvious from what many of my cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week, the next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader, the TUC next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us.

"But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date and I'll do it in the interests of the country and depending on the circumstances of the time.

"Now that doesn't in any way take away from the fact it is my last conference but I think the precise timetable has to be left up to me and got to be done in a proper way.

"I also say one other thing after the last week, I think it is important for the Labour party to understand, and I think the majority of people in the party do understand, that it's the public that comes first and it's the country that matters and we can't treat the public as irrelevant bystanders in a subject as important as who is their prime minister.

"So we should just bear that in mind in the way that we conduct ourselves in the time to come.

"In the meantime I think it is important we get on with the business. I was at a primary school earlier - fantastic new buildings, great new IT suite, school results improving.

"I'm here at this school that just in the last few years has come on by leaps and bounds doing fantastically well.

"We've got the blockade on the Lebanon lifted today. You know, there are important things going on in the world.

"And I think I speak for all my cabinet colleagues when I say that we would prefer to get on with those things because those are the things that really matter and really matter to the country.

"So as I say it has been a somewhat difficult week, but I think it's time now to move on and I think we will."

    Tony Blair's statement in full, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1867074,00.html

2.30pm update

Brown: this is Blair's decision

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and James Sturcke

Gordon Brown has broken his silence over the future of the Labour leadership, saying he will "support" the prime minister's decision - but warned Tony Blair there can be no more "private arrangements".

Mr Blair himself is speaking today at a north London school, where he is expected to announce an intention to resign next summer, but stop short of naming the precise date.

The chancellor was speaking in Glasgow after 48 hours of frenzied speculation and plotting at the heart of government.

He told reporters: "I want to make it absolutely clear today that when I met the prime minister yesterday, I said to him, as I have said on many occasions to him and I repeat today, that it is for him to make the decision.

"I said also to him and I make clear again today that I will support him in the decisions he makes, that this cannot and should not be about private arrangements but what is in the best interests of our party and, most of all, the best interests of our country."

Mr Brown's brief pledge of support came in a few words to reporters came as he prepared to meet Scottish Labour MSPs tonight in Edinburgh.

Downing Street confirmed that the prime minister would use a visit to a north London school between 2pm and 3pm to speak about the end of his premiership.

The leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, today became the most senior cabinet minister to suggest that the prime minister would leave in May, two years after his historic third election victory, but warned that Labour was on the edge of an "abyss".

Meanwhile, Mr Brown was due to open a sports centre in his native Scotland with Sir Steve Redgrave, the Olympic gold medallist.

Mr Brown is unlikely to be able to avoid reporters' questions about his role in the resignations of eight junior government members yesterday.

Widespread speculation over the past 48 hours has put the date of Mr Blair's departure at May, which is the 10th anniversary of his premiership and coincides with tricky elections for the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly.

Today's Evening Standard claims the prime minister will go by May 4, while yesterday's Sun plumped for May 31.

The prime minister's official spokesman today told reporters that his statement this afternoon could criticise those who appeared to conspire against him this week.

"I think the prime minister is very well aware of what the public must be thinking about events this week, and I think if he does say something it will reflect on that as well," he said.

The spokesman said Mr Blair was "very comfortable" with David Miliband's statement on Monday that he would step down within 12 months.

However, he added that "in terms of precise dates, I said yesterday we won't be giving a running commentary on this, and that remains the position ... I don't think people will be able to talk any more confidently about dates this evening than they were yesterday morning."

With the two key players in the drama yet to make a public comment on their reported three-hour row yesterday, Mr Straw said it was "reasonable" to expect Mr Blair to serve for at least two years after his third election victory.

He said the prime minister would stand down in time to allow his successor to be in place before the start of next summer, but delivered a warning over the conflict within Labour.

"This is damaging to the Labour party, but it is damaging above and beyond that to the interests of the country, and that is why everybody has to settle down and ... accept what the prime minister has said or [what] has been said on his behalf," Mr Straw told the BBC's Today programme.

Asked whether this included Mr Brown, he said: "'Everybody' includes everybody in the party."

Mr Straw said he did not believe Mr Brown was behind the letter calling on Mr Blair to quit now, and expected the chancellor to break his silence on the leadership row today.

"I am clear, so far as the letters that have been written, that Mr Brown was not asked whether these letters should be written and indeed, had he been asked, he would not have authorised those letters to be written," he said.

"Gordon Brown is going to be in public today. I would be surprised if he doesn't say something."

Mr Straw denied he personally wanted more clarity from Mr Blair over a departure date. "I am very content with where we have got to," he said.

"I would also be very content with there being an orderly handover to a new leader, who I hope will be Gordon Brown. I think that's the sentiment of the party.

"What I also hope is - in the light of what people now know, which is that there will be a new leader, whoever that is, by this time next year - that should be sufficient certainty for the party to settle down, to draw back from this abyss."

A strong indication that Mr Blair would break his silence came from the Labour chief whip, Jacqui Smith, this morning. However, it is a sign of the trouble the party is in that she is giving interviews - chief whips traditionally do not speak to the media.

"I don't think things have gone very smoothly over the last two days, but what I know is that my colleagues, the vast majority of ministers, the chancellor and prime minister know that their top priority is delivering for the country, is getting on with the job," Ms Smith said.

Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, accused the PM's tormentors of "petulism" in an interview with GMTV.

She said she thought Mr Blair's departure date would "become clear", adding: "He's given an indication that later today he'll probably confirm some sort of yardstick."

In an interview published in the New Statesman today but carried out before the current crisis, Mr Miliband said the "great mass" of the Labour movement was "excited" about the prospect of a Brown premiership.

    Brown: this is Blair's decision, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866600,00.html

10.15am

Blair to break silence as Straw hints at May departure

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

Tony Blair is expected today to confirm that he will step down within a year, bowing to the intense pressure of the past 24 hours but leaving the exact date at his discretion.

Jack Straw, the leader of the Commons, today became the most senior cabinet minister to all-but-confirm that the prime minister would retire next May - two years after his historic third election victory - but he warned that the party was now on the edge of an "abyss".

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is due in his native Scotland today, to open a sports centre with Steve Redgrave, the Olympic gold medallist, where the chancellor is unlikely to be able to avoid reporters' questions about his role in the resignations of eight junior members of the government yesterday.

Mr Blair is meeting the Singaporean prime minister in private in Downing Street this morning, but has a scheduled visit to a school with the education secretary, Alan Johnson, this afternoon.

With the two key players in the drama yet to make a public comment on their reported three-hour row yesterday, Mr Straw this morning said it was "reasonable" to expect that Mr Blair would serve for at least two years after his third election victory on May 5, 2005 and would stand down in time to allow his successor to be in place before the start of next summer.

But he warned that the civil war within the party was now damaging both Labour and the country.

Mr Straw told the BBC: "This is damaging to the Labour party, but it is damaging above and beyond that to the interests of the country, and that is why everybody has to settle down and, in my judgment, to accept what the prime minister has said or [what] has been said on his behalf."

Asked if this included Mr Brown, the leader of the Commons responded: " 'Everybody' includes everybody in the party."

Interviewed on the Today programme, Mr Straw said that he did not believe that Mr Brown was behind the letter calling on Mr Blair to quit now and said that he expected the chancellor to break his silence on the leadership row today.

Mr Straw said: "[Mr Blair] said during the course of the last election that his intention was to work through more or less a full term.

"I think it is reasonable, I think the nation expects, that that at least means that he takes it to the halfway point of a normal four-year parliament.

"Moreover, he has also made it clear - or it has been made clear on his behalf - that the forthcoming conference in three weeks' time will be his last annual conference, so there has to be another leader in place by next year's annual conference.

"Our procedures take some time, because we are a democratic party," he said. "There has to be some certainty about who the leader is before the summer break next year, not afterwards.

"People can then work backwards from that. I think it is satisfactory. I think it is what the party accepts.

"I am clear, so far as the letters that have been written, that Mr Brown was not asked whether these letters should be written and indeed, had he been asked, he would not have authorised those letters to be written," he said.

Asked why the chancellor had not so far made a public expression of support for the prime minister in order to calm the current crisis, Mr Straw said: "Gordon Brown is going to be in public today. I would be surprised if he doesn't say something."

Mr Straw denied that he personally wanted more clarity from Mr Blair.

"I am very content with where we have got to. I would also be very content with there being an orderly handover to a new leader, who I hope will be Gordon Brown. I think that's the sentiment of the party.

"What I also hope is - in the light of what people now know, which is that there will be a new leader, whoever that is, by this time next year - that should be sufficient certainty for the party to settle down, to draw back from this abyss."

A strong sign that Mr Blair would break his silence came from the Labour chief whip, Jacqui Smith.

She said: "We have already had some clarification this week from David Miliband [the environment secretary] that it is likely that the new leader will be in place by the next conference.

"I expect, I think, the prime minister may well confirm that. What is then important is that we lift our heads from this business and get back to the day job of running the country."

However, it is a sign of the trouble that the party is in that Ms Smith is giving interviews; chief whips traditionally do not speak to the media.

Ms Smith admited: "I don't think things have gone very smoothly over the last two days, but what I know is that my colleagues, the vast majority of ministers, the chancellor and prime minister know that their top priority is delivering for the country, is getting on with the job.

Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, accused the PM's tormentors of "petulism" in an interview with GMTV.

Asked about Mr Blair's departure date this morning, the former education secretary said: "I think that will become clear. I mean, he's given an indication that later today he'll probably confirm some sort of yardstick so that people know approximately that he, along with the perceived wisdom, probably won't be in Downing Street a year from now."

In an interview with today's New Statesman, carried out before the current crisis, David Miliband claimed that the "great mass" of the Labour movement was "excited" about the prospect of a Brown premiership.

    Blair to break silence as Straw hints at May departure, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866600,00.html

The day Blair accused his chancellor of blackmail

· Brown demands PM go by Christmas
· Shouting match as PM refuses joint premiership

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

An all-out power struggle between the chancellor and the prime minister, culminating with allegations of blackmail by Tony Blair and a ferocious shouting match between the two men, appeared last night to have forced Mr Blair to publicly declare as early as today that he will not be prime minister this time next year.

That may not be enough for Gordon Brown, who is understood to have demanded that Mr Blair quit by Christmas, with an effective joint premiership until a new leader is anointed by the party.

Mr Blair's statement - possibly to be made when he attends a north London school with education secretary Alan Johnson today - will effectively confirm what cabinet ministers, including David Miliband, have been hinting about his intentions in the past few days. It represents a further shift in position as the prime minister struggles to cling to office and prevent a meltdown in the party.

But last night Mr Brown found himself under pressure to repudiate the move by some MPs to force Mr Blair from office now. The Treasury hinted last night that it could accept a deal in which Mr Blair stood down by the beginning of May, so long as the prime minister made a public declaration of this intention within the coming months.

In probably the most astonishing day in the annals of New Labour, the use of the word blackmail to describe Mr Brown's actions over the past few days by Downing Street staff was authorised by Mr Blair, and reflected his view that Mr Brown is orchestrating a coup against him. Downing Street claimed the resignation yesterday of the junior defence minister Tom Watson and six parliamentary aides came with Mr Brown's agreement. The seven men quit the government demanding that Mr Blair stand down immediately. Later in the evening, another of the letter's signatories, Iain Wright, resigned as a parliamentary private secretary in the Department of Health.

Downing Street's allegations led to counter accusations from the Brown camp of intimidation of backbench MPs by No 10 aides desperate to cling to office. As a result, the chances of the much prized stable and orderly transition between the two men looked to have collapsed.

The recriminations came after meetings between the two men at Downing Street ended yesterday afternoon with Mr Blair rejecting Mr Brown's terms for allowing him to remain in office, including an accelerated timetable for Mr Blair's resignation by Christmas, and an effective joint premiership in the interim.

Blairites claimed that Mr Brown also demanded a public endorsement of the chancellor's leadership candidacy, and repudiation of the idea of a fundamental debate about the Labour party's future. Mr Blair's aides demanded that Mr Brown distance himself from what the chief whip, Jacqui Smith, described as "an attempt to bundle Mr Blair from office".

At one point Mr Blair was also warned that unless he relented on the date and terms of his resignation there would be more senior resignations from government today. A more emollient account was given by the Treasury, asserting that Mr Blair recognised that he would have to move on his position that he would not state whether he would go next year.

The two meetings between Mr Brown and Mr Blair, totalling three and a half hours, occurred after Mr Watson and the parliamentary aides resigned. They were part of a group of 15 MPs who wrote privately to the prime minister claiming that he was now an electoral liability. News of the letter leaked to the Guardian on Monday.

In the letter, released yesterday, the 15, many of them previously loyal backbenchers, described themselves as modernisers and wrote: "Sadly, it is clear to us - as it is to almost the entire party and the entire country - that without an urgent change in the leadership of the party it becomes less likely that we will win the next election. That is the brutal truth. It gives us no pleasure to say it. But it has to be said. And understood."

Ominously for Mr Blair, the leader of the Commons, Jack Straw, went to see him to underline the pressure on him. The transport secretary, Douglas Alexander, refused to pledge support. And the environment secretary, David Miliband, said in an interview that only Mr Brown could save the party, and urged his colleagues to avoid civil war. But the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, accused the letter writers of madness, saying they were forgetting the lessons of Labour's strife in the 1980s, and adding: "It looks as if they are trying to engineer a coup". Three of Mr Blair's cabinet allies, the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, and the home secretary, John Reid, were all abroad.

At the height of the breakdown in relations yesterday, one Blairite and former cabinet minister close to the discussions said: "Threatening a serving prime minister in this way borders on the unconstitutional. We are a democracy, not an autocracy living in the era of the Soviet Union circa 1956. There is no way people can be muzzled in the way the chancellor is demanding." The rivals' second meeting came at Mr Blair's request. Earlier Mr Brown had called on him to declare that he would quit the leadership before the end of May. Mr Blair refused. The second meeting also appeared to end in deadlock.

It also emerged that an attempted mediation between the two camps organised by the Blairite Lord Falconer and the Brownite industry secretary, Alistair Darling, fell apart on Monday.

    The day Blair accused his chancellor of blackmail, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866401,00.html

Resignations and threats: the plot to oust the prime minister

Chaos in the party as Blair and Brown camps engage in political warfare with neither side prepared to blink first

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward and Patrick Wintour

Yesterday fitted no one's definition of the "stable and orderly transition" that Tony Blair had promised the Labour party.

A day that began with a resignation and culminated in showdowns in Downing Street brought took New Labour into unchartered territory, with neither side preparing to give any quarter, no matter what, it seemed, the political cost. As first a junior minister quit, and then a series of parliamentary private secretaries, the tide appeared to be turning against the prime minister.

But at every stage, Mr Blair counterpunched hard, unwilling to give up and prepared to use the full power of his office to hold on.

As the day wore on, it was impossible to ignore the anxiety - verging on panic - in No 10, as the prime minister and his chancellor met to attempt to thrash out a deal in meetings that ended inconclusively, and to no one's satisfaction.

Whatever was being said in briefings, Mr Blair's allies were clear about how to characterise the manoeuvering: an attempted coup.

Behind it, or certainly a part of it, was Tom Watson, the defence minister, whose name was among those on a letter calling for Mr Blair to quit. No 10 had been bracing itself for the note ever since officials were contacted by the Guardian in York late on Monday night.

The chief whip, Jacqui Smith, had told Mr Watson to withdraw his name. He did not, and his fate was sealed. He quit the government at 11.12am. His resignation statement was given to the media while most lobby journalists were in their daily briefing at No 10.

He said in his letter to the prime minister: "I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country." It didn't take long for Downing Street to hit back, and brutally.

Mr Blair responded at 11.58: "I have heard from the media that Tom Watson has resigned. I had been intending to dismiss him but wanted to extend to him the courtesy of speaking to him first. Had he come privately and expressed his view about the leadership, that would have been one thing. But to sign a round-robin letter which was then leaked to the press was disloyal, discourteous and wrong. It would therefore have been impossible for him to remain in government."

Though an official letter from Mr Blair was more conciliatory, the tone for the rest of the day had been set, with Downing Street more suspicious than ever that the Brown camp was behind the plot.

Blair loyalists asked why Doug Henderson, another of the chancellor's closest allies, appeared in his garden on TV within minutes of Mr Watson quitting, insisting that a new leader needed to be in place by March, with the process of starting an election within weeks.

Khalid Mahmood, parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Home Office, shortly followed Mr Watson in resigning, a signal to others to follow.

Blair allies claimed that Mr Watson, a former Treasury whip and PPS, had been close to Gordon Brown for years, and in fact had left the prime minister's embrace as far back as in 1996.

Allies of Mr Blair spent the morning trying to quell, or at least stall, the government's civil war. John Hutton, the work and pensions secretary, went on Radio 4's Today programme to deliver a "calm down" message to the rebels. It didn't work, and Mr Hutton in fact helped fan anger on the backbenches and the suspicions of the Brown camp.

Mr Hutton conceded that the chancellor, if he became prime minister, would be a New Labour premier, but he appeared to actively encourage an alternative, cabinet-level candidate to come forward.

Just like the Sopranos

So too did John Burton, Mr Blair's agent in Sedgefield. But other critics of Mr Blair were telling the rebels to back off. Glenda Jackson, the former transport minister, said in a statement that she felt reassured by the Sun's front page naming May 31 next year as the day Mr Blair would stand down as party leader. This belated conciliation went unheeded elsewhere.

John McDonnell, the leftwing MP who is the only confirmed challenger to Mr Brown for the Labour leadership, captured the mood. "Most of us have looked on aghast - it's almost been like an episode of the Sopranos, what has been going on over the last couple of weeks," he told Today.

Opposition parties exploited the chaos enveloping the government. David Cameron, on an official visit to India, said: "It appears this government is in meltdown and divided. It seems unable to show leadership on the challenges of the future." He agreed, though did not say so himself, that Mr Blair was "a lame duck".

The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, a loyal Blairite, said it was "madness" for Labour MPs to demand conditions from the PM. "Everyone knows that the contest for the new leadership will take place next year. In the meantime, Tony Blair as leader and prime minister is entitled to expect at least as much loyalty and discipline as the next leader will rightly demand from the Labour party."

By lunchtime it was clear that all six PPS's from the 2001 intake had quit, including the PPS to Mr Hutton. Mark Tami and Ian Lucas - both Amicus-sponsored MPs - went. So too did Mr Mahmood, the only one of four Asian MPs who refused to criticise the government's policy in Iraq and Lebanon in a letter last month. Among the others to hand in their resignations, Wayne David was no surprise; but David Wright and Chris Mole were.

Shortly after 2pm, a source close to the rebel MPs was prepared to consign Mr Blair to political oblivion. "He's got hours left. He was given a chance this morning to confirm the Sun story or set a clear date for his departure, and nothing has come back. He has been very foolish and arrogant. Plans for the delegation are being made. The calls are being made. Tony is going to be told it is moving time."

Terrible damage

The returning fire from inside government started to intensify. One cabinet aide was beside himself: "This is a military organised coup. The Brownites and their supporters could do terrible damage by all this, not just of themselves, but the party. It is an insane tactic. People out there will think it is a terrible behaviour."

Around that time, the letter sent to Mr Blair on Tuesday night by Mr Watson and the other PPS's was published in full.

It offered a velvet glove - "we believe that you have been an exceptional Labour prime minister. The party and the nation owes you an incalculable debt of gratitude" - with an iron fist: "It is clear to us - as it is to almost the entire party and the entire country - that without an urgent change in the leadership of the party it becomes less likely that we will win that [next] election.

"That is the brutal truth. It gives us no pleasure to say it. But it has to be said. And understood. This is not a plot against you by people who want to reverse or slow down the progress you have led. We are all as determined as you are that nothing should stand in its way ... as utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers, we therefore have to ask you to stand aside."

At 2pm yesterday Mr Blair and Mr Brown - invisible since the current leadership crisis began - met in Downing Street for 90 minutes. This came after an earlier two-hour meeting at 7.30am. Both meetings ended without any kind of agreement over what should happen next. Neither man was, it seems, is prepared to blink first.

According to a well-placed source, they had not had a single meaningful discussion about "transition" since before this May's local elections. They had spoken plenty of times on other issues, but not on this particular elephant in the room.

Hopes that peace could be reached by an earlier meeting between cabinet ministers Lord Falconer (Mr Blair's former flatmate) and Alistair Darling (a close ally of Mr Brown) had proved futile. The two men simply had to thrash it out themselves. From the heart of Downing Street came an increasingly angry, even desperate, cry of pain. "Gordon has moved from wanting a stable and orderly transition to [Alan] Milburn and others being muzzled, to a joint premiership, no debate on the future and no sense there will be a contest. That is because Gordon has moved from being the most obvious successor to finding out that there will be a challenge because of his behaviour. So they have to get Tony out now, or else they may not win."

The chancellor later left Downing Street via a back entrance, speeding away in his ministerial limousine.

Dwindling support

Jack Straw, leader of the Commons, who had been moved from foreign secretary against his will, was the next minister to meet Mr Blair, again in Downing Street.

According to one source, he told Mr Blair that support for him was dwindling. He left smiling.

None of this was what the unnamed Downing Street aide quoted in the Daily Mirror had had in mind for the prime minister's last days; it had been proposed that Mr Blair should be "the star who won't even play that last encore".

Instead, some of his friends - and many of his enemies - were telling him to close the show.

Timeline

· 00.01 Sun reports that Tony Blair has set May 31 2007 as the date he will resign as Labour leader

· 7.30 Gordon Brown and Tony Blair meet for two hours at Downing Street

· 8.10 John Hutton says Mr Blair should be allowed to stand down at the time of his choosing but refuses to rule out a challenger to Mr Brown

· 11.00 Mr Blair's spokesman says the prime minister plans to talk to junior defence minister Tom Watson "later today" after he signed a round robin letter calling on Mr Blair to go.

· 11.12 Mr Watson resigns.

· 11.58 Mr Blair calls Mr Watson "disloyal, discourteous and wrong".

· 12.35 Khalid Mahmood resigns as parliamentary private secretary to Home Office minister Tony McNulty.

· 14.00 Gordon Brown meets again with Mr Blair.

· 14.01 Four more parliamentary private secretaries - Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami and David Wright - resign.

· 14.35 Another PPS, Chris Mole, resigns.

· Late afternoon Jack Straw is reported to have told Mr Blair support for him was slipping away.

· 19.30 Patricia Hewitt accuses rebel MPs of "trying to engineer a coup".

    Resignations and threats: the plot to oust the prime minister, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866441,00.html

Johnson and Reid wait in the wings to challenge chancellor

Anger in prime minister's camp as Blairites consider rival leadership bid

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent

Tony Blair's supporters in the parliamentary party were last night urgently assessing whether there should be a challenge to Gordon Brown and, if so, who the challenger should be. Though the situation was chaotic, there are two likely contenders in the home secretary, John Reid, and the education secretary, Alan Johnson. Others being touted by Blairite backbenchers are the pensions secretary, John Hutton, with Hazel Blears, the party chairman as his deputy.

In a reference to Labour's rebels, Stephen Pound, the MP for Ealing North, said: "What do these people want, blood? He [Blair] has already said he will go and should be left to make a dignified exit. What is clear is that Tom Watson would not have moved to stick a knife between Blair's shoulder blades without the say-so of Gordon."

Intense anger

Mr Pound said there was intense anger among Mr Blair's supporters and that people were already looking for candidates to challenge the chancellor. Former cabinet colleagues Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers, the men known as the Blairite outriders for promoting New Labour policies, seen certain to rule themselves out.

Mr Milburn is seen to have handled Labour's last election campaign poorly and Mr Byers is said to have never recovered from the bruising he took in office on issues such as Railtrack. Neither would have a fighting chance of winning a leadership contest against Mr Brown.

A much more formidable opponent would be Mr Reid, who took over as home secretary this year after Charles Clarke tended his resignation following a series of Home Office fiascos.

During the summer when John Prescott, the deputy PM, was officially in charge of the country, Mr Reid captured the headlines with his strong statements on fighting terrorism.

He has a reputation for being a hard man who takes no prisoners. He certainly trod all over the policies of his predecessor, Mr Clarke, declaring the ministry "not fit for purpose". In the space of 100 days he dumped controversial proposals for police force mergers, announced a big shakeup of the immigration service, promised to build more prisons and put forward plans for a transfer of staff from backroom tasks to the front line.

Mr Reid also took tough decisions as health secretary, including bringing in the private sector to handle diagnostic testing. He also made the highly non-PC statement defending smoking as one of the working man's pleasures. By his own admission, his favourite job in government was defence secretary where he could take a lead role in rallying the troops.

Nearly all of this chimed rather well with No 10. His problem is that he does not have a big base in parliament but his brand of tough talking might go down well with many working-class members, particularly among trade unionists, who will each have an individual vote for the leadership.

Officially, of course, Mr Reid has said he would never challenge Mr Brown, but he is no friend of the chancellor, and must privately relish a fight with his fellow Scot.

Alan Johnson, the education secretary, has been more frank than perhaps he should have been, by his own admission, in nursing political ambitions. He has already made it clear he would stand for the deputy leadership. While he does not have the high public profile of Mr Reid, he has a much better profile inside the party. A former trade union leader, he is respected by the TUC and in the movement as a whole. He won many friends among women MPs by making a very strong statement in favour of equal pensions. The public sector unions were grateful for the deal he negotiated as work and pensions secretary this year to allow millions of existing workers to keep their right to retire at 60 while still introducing longterm savings. He prevented a damaging "summer of discontent" by getting the unions to call off industrial action over the issue.

Sense of humour

He is also firmly in Labour's modernising wing. He was one of the first to back the axing of clause four and is campaigning for further reform of the party's constitution, including abolishing what is left of the union bloc vote at party conference. While playing a key role in protecting the Post Office from privatisation in Labour's last manifesto, he also believes in new forms of industrial democracy - notably supporting the idea of workers owning shares in the Post Office when he was a trade union general secretary. Whether he carries the charisma to beat Mr Brown is a different matter. Privately, he has a great sense of humour, but he would need to raise his public profile more than a notch to defeat the chancellor.

The next leader: Runners and riders

Gordon Brown
Odds: 1-4
Pro: Easily the frontrunner; boasting tons of experience and backers.
Con: Blairites are determined to trip him up.

Alan Johnson
Odds: 5-1
Pro: Affable, articulate, seen as a breath of fresh air.
Con: Relatively new, still to build his profile. Unions are suspicious.

John Reid
Odds: 10-1
Pro: High-profile, experienced, keen to take on Brown.
Con: Too closely associated with Blair. Has come under fire at Home Office.

Alan Milburn
Odds: 25-1
Pro: Nothing to lose by standing; might emerge as Blairites' choice.
Con: Antagonised many as a minister; too long out of government.

David Miliband
Odds: 20-1
Pro: Brainy, diligent, well-liked.
Con: Too young at 41, too wonkish.

    Johnson and Reid wait in the wings to challenge chancellor, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866459,00.html

A war without winners

Thursday September 7, 2006
Leader
The Guardian

Who could honestly have predicted, back in 1994 or even as late as 2005, that the years of New Labour ascendancy would end in this way, with an irreconcilable eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the two men whose raw talent and unprecedented closeness built the most electorally successful government in the history of the British left? New Labour has had many moments of hubris in the last dozen years - but not until now has it experienced such a moment of nemesis. That moment was reached around four o'clock yesterday afternoon, when the irresistible force of Gordon Brown's desire to become party leader as soon as possible met the immovable object of Tony Blair's determination to depart with dignity in the middle of next year. The two men met for almost two hours in 10 Downing Street to see if some form of words and deeds could be constructed to enable both men to get most of what they want. Their efforts failed. The differences were unbridgeable.

Whether the failure owes more to one man's ego or the other man's vanity is not really the issue. Downing Street accused Mr Brown of trying to blackmail the prime minister. The chancellor's camp charged Mr Blair with putting his own interests above those of the party. If Mr Blair truly believed his chancellor was guilty of blackmail (and was willing to sanction a public briefing to this effect) he should have surely sacked him. That he didn't - or couldn't - speaks volumes about the weakness of his position. An alternative logic is thus irresistible: that the prime minister's grasp on power is so enfeebled that he cannot reasonably cling to office for much longer.

At the end of a day of some considerable drama, the indisputable reality was that the difference between the two men's positions was bridgeable. It still is. Mr Blair has dramatically scaled down his previous plan to govern for a full third term to an ambition to be allowed to depart with dignity in a few months. Mr Brown knows that he will still be odds-on favourite and the natural successor. That two such senior figures could fail to resolve such a relatively small dispute is a cause of mutual censure. Labour supporters who yesterday had to swallow the vainglorious plans dreamed up by Downing Street for a Blair farewell tour that will now never take place will today learn with equal dismay that an attempt by the Brownite Alistair Darling and the Blairite Lord Falconer to act as honest brokers between their two patrons was vetoed by an implacable Mr Brown, who may have his own reasons for not taking his colleague's private assurances on trust. Labour's necessary and overdue transition to the post-Blair era looks likely to be far more destructive and bitter than Labour members and the millions who have voted for Labour since 1997 - and who continue to have faith in its values and achievements - had a right to demand.

Quite where all this will now go, at what speed and with what exact cost is hard to predict. A lot may hinge on the statement Tony Blair is due to make later today. But, unless Blair and Brown are reconciled, there is little reason for Labour to be optimistic about how things will play out.

With a sudden shower of government resignations following on from all the backbench plotting, Labour is a party polarising from top to bottom over the leadership question, and calls for a "stable and orderly transition" now seem to belong to a lost age of innocence. Nevertheless, it remains in Labour's interest for there to be as smooth a transfer as is possible in the unforgiving circumstances: civil war could destroy this government, just as surely as it has destroyed others in the past. If ever there was a moment for Labour MPs, members and supporters to demand a return to sanity and respect within the upper reaches of their party, this is it.

    A war without winners, G, 7.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1866361,00.html

After years of skirmishing, the civil war Labour dreaded has broken out

Any reasons Blair now has for staying on have nothing to do with ideology. The battle is personal: keep Brown out

Thursday September 7, 2006
Polly Toynbee
The Guardian


'This is an attempted coup!" So said one of Tony Blair's closest Downing Street aides yesterday, his voice shaking with anger: "This is a well-planned, coordinated campaign organised by just one man - Gordon Brown. This is 1970s trade union politics carried out by shop stewards. The public will find it an absolute bloody disgrace. It is very, very telling about the style in which this man and these people will run the country!"

He outlined the thread of contacts and friendships of Tom Watson, the minister who resigned. Most of the signatories to the letter calling on Blair to stand down, he claimed, were linked as old union comrades in arms. How did Doug Henderson just happen to have a TV crew in the garden at just the right moment? The truth that will emerge, he said, is that Blair was "ousted by old Labour trade unions. That's who!" As he was speaking, the old protagonists Blair and Brown - the joint founders of New Labour - were locked in a titanic summit behind closed doors, ending later, apparently without resolution.

True or not, the Blair camp will present everything that follows as an old Labour trade union plot - and that is a calamity for Labour. Who lit the blue touchpaper? Some will say that Blair did, with his provocative Times interview in which he refused to give any timetable. If only he had chosen the coming party conference as his timely triumphal exit, the last moment left to leave with dignity and the gratitude of his party.

After all, the only reason why he promised not to stand a fourth time was because he had already lost public trust, along with much of his party's support. Since then it has bled away with every returning bodybag. His will-rattling attempts to chain his heir to his own agenda have not pleased his party, either. Blair's people seem to forget that this is the inevitable fate meted out to leaders who take their nations to the wrong wars. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was truly great - but Vietnam killed him. History will judge Iraq and Bush, not Gordon Brown, to be Blair's true nemesis.

This is no longer about how many months Blair stays, but about whether a successful government will implode. After long years of skirmishing, the Blair/Brown fault line is breaking out into open civil war, toxic and quite possibly terminal. But this is not just Brown. "Loyal" doesn't do justice to those erstwhile Blair devotees, Chris Bryant and Sion Simon, who suddenly broke ranks and charged out with a Cromwellian letter, signed by their 2001 Blairite cohort, calling on the PM to go, for God's sake go.

"Lethal" doesn't do justice to John Hutton's refusal yesterday to repeat the obligatory Blairite mantra that Gordon Brown will certainly succeed. Hutton threw down a gauntlet signalling that the Blair platoon will no longer grit its teeth and talk of "stable and orderly transition". Does he mean that they intend to put up a senior Blair candidate to challenge Brown? The same Downing Street insider now says ferociously: "Of course not. Unless the PM is ousted in a coup, then all bets are off." That is a scorched-earth threat.

Here is the danger. The Labour party has no meaningful ideological schism, (certainly smaller than the Tories'). If John Reid, say, puts up against Brown for the loyalist cause, this would be no re-run of Benn v Healey, or only history repeated as farce. Apart from the few on the far left represented by John McDonnell, the great majority of MPs are New Labour, for neither Blair nor Brown, and they agree on most important things. You can find plenty of differences on issues ranging from nuclear power to constitutional reform, but these would criss-cross the Blair-Brown ranks haphazardly. This battle is essentially personal, not ideological.

So when the Blairites say their only purpose is to ensure the future is New Labour, they deceive themselves. Brown is the co-architect of New Labour policy and New Labour economics. He is no back-to-the-future socialist, though some might wish it. Now the Blair camp has broken cover, it is plain the tiny hard core aims to keep Brown out; ideology is only a fig leaf. In their desperation to create a difference, they toss in rightwing hand grenades, such as Stephen Byers's proposal to abolish inheritance tax. Not even the Tories suggest that - yet there was no slap-down from Blair.

Expect many more rightwing suggestions, designed to paint Gordon red. Any leadership contest from a New Labourite will turn into a personal grudge fight, inventing differences to hide what is ancient loathing of a "psychologically flawed" man, blending into the fears of those who know that Brown would demote or sack them.

In this mood, is Labour capable of conducting a leadership election as elegantly as the Tories did, leaving not a bruise on the victor? Can they save themselves? In all political feuds both sides self-righteously believe that they are their party's only true saviour.

In this atmosphere, beware naive or disingenuous voices who say apparently reasonable things that may disguise their true intent. Some who call with seeming sincerity for a "real debate" within New Labour ranks really want a fight. When Brown eventually lays out his wares, there certainly will be a debate, as there was among Tories over Cameron's new direction - but beware of those who thirst for war.

Look askance at injured innocence from the Blair camp: he's only just been elected, the public wants him to stay, why is everyone else rocking the boat? Or those who say, "Blair's going anyway, so why does he stand and fight?" No one knows what Blair thinks, but some of those urging him to stay harbour that darker wish: if only he hangs on long enough, another candidate can be got up and running. They have no other cogent policy reasons to explain what good Blair can do in a year, with his authority now gone.

As for these polls, just remember that the same voters who say they don't want Blair to go yet are the ones who give him satisfaction ratings twice as bad as when Mrs Thatcher was toppled; the very same who no longer trust him and won't vote for him. Voters rarely imagine anyone else leading a party until it happens. The polite word is deluded, others talk of No 10 as La-La land.

But ask pollsters, and some reckon that for a long time now Blair's entourage has been screening out any of its own polling results that it doesn't like. Blair sidelined Stan Greenberg, the distinguished US pollster he had hired, dismissing him as "obsessed about Iraq". He shot the messenger who brought the bad news that the fallout from Iraq has done for trust in Blair, permanently, irredeemably.

Most Labour MPs, members and supporters will look on aghast at this blood-letting day, with worse to follow. Here is a successful left-of-centre government running a strong economy with good social policies, led by mainly decent, clever people, that is destroying itself before our eyes.

Who is to blame? The prime minister who refused to accept that Iraq made early departure imperative - or his would-be assassin? It doesn't matter. All that can be hoped - forlornly - is that hotheads are brought to their senses and a least-worst peaceful end can somehow be forged right now.

    After years of skirmishing, the civil war Labour dreaded has broken out, G, 7.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1866303,00.html

Ten years of pacts, pettiness and feuds

· Uneasy relationship built on Granita pact unravels
· MP likens recent feuds to episode of The Sopranos

Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian
Ewen MacAskill

The leftwing Labour MP John McDonnell yesterday described the events of the last few weeks as being like an episode from The Sopranos. The Blair-Brown feud has never reached the levels of blood-letting in the mafia television show but easily matches it in personal viciousness, paranoia, scheming and general pettiness.

The two-hour showdown at Downing Street has been a long time coming, dating back to the Granita pact in 1994, when the two men met at the north London restaurant to carve up the Labour leadership. That deal, far from a peace pact, created a dysfunctional relationship that has disfigured the government for a decade.

A former Downing Street aide was asked a few years ago why, when the two had a disagreement, they did not just sit down and talk. The aide provided a glimpse of their relationship when she said in exasperation: "Don't people shout at each other in most marriages?"

They met for the first time as new backbenchers at the Commons in 1983 and a political alliance was formed that helped create New Labour. Mr Brown was initially dominant but that changed when Labour lost the election in 1992; Mr Blair, fearful of another election defeat, pushed for faster reform. Mr Brown began losing the support of many parliamentary colleagues when, as shadow chancellor, he knocked back a string of proposed spending plans.

When the Labour leader, John Smith, died in 1994, Mr Blair was better placed to succeed and at the Granita meeting, Mr Brown grudgingly stood aside.

After that meeting, Mr Brown briefed a group of his supporters, one of whom recalled him producing a memo he had written at the restaurant listing 12 points, including promises of posts in the shadow cabinet for allies, a promise to stand aside for Mr Brown in the second term and control not only of the Treasury but of other domestic departments related to the economy.

The promise about domestic control meant that when Labour won the general election in 1997, Mr Blair was deliberately left in the dark by Mr Brown about much of domestic policy and the prime minister began to focus more and more on foreign policy, with disastrous results in the case of Iraq. There were disputes in those early years about not only domestic policies but Europe too. And there was pettiness: for example, Cherie Blair was angered by Mr Brown's unwillingness to reach a compromise over accommodation in Downing Street.

In 1998, when Mr Brown was hosting a reception at No 11 attended by mainly fellow Scots, a voice floated in from another room, declaring them to be "the official opposition": it was Mr Blair. At the time, it was ambiguous, possibly a joke. But each year that passed, the bitterness became more and more apparent.

Mr Brown, along with a few trusted colleagues at the Treasury, became increasingly paranoid about the Blair camp but too cautious to strike. The paranoia was reciprocated on the Blair side, who were sure that Mr Brown was repeatedly trying to undermine them.

In the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2003, Mr Brown said nothing about the rights and wrongs of joining the US in the conflict but the two had yet another disagreement when the chancellor challenged the costs involved.

In the autumn of that year, there appeared to be a new pact, with Brownites claiming Mr Blair would leave in the summer of 2004. But when Mr Brown was overseas, Mr Blair announced in the summer of 2004 he would stay on for a third and final term, a move described by one of Mr Brown's colleagues at the time as "an African coup".

Mr Brown was subsequently reported to have said: "There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe" - a remark he has since repeated several times.

With relations worsening, the two went weeks without speaking. In last year's general election, Mr Brown was initially left out of the campaign planning but when the party ran into trouble, he was drafted back. But when Mr Brown and his wife, Sarah, flew to London for the election party, the two were twice snubbed by the prime minister and his wife.

Symptomatic of the poor relationship, the chancellor, though a champion of the developing world, was not invited by Mr Blair to the Group of Eight meeting at Gleneagles a few months later. One of the Brown camp, resentful on behalf of the chancellor, said: "It was like Hamlet without the prince."

Mr Blair had been planning to stay in office until at least next year and possibly to 2008, in part to spite Mr Brown for what the Blairites see as repeated disloyalty and obstructionism. He would then leave to make money on the lecture circuit, write a book and set up a Blair foundation. Staying in office as long as he had planned now no longer looks feasible.

In the early years of the feud, Mr Brown at least respected Mr Blair's political acumen. But that too has now gone. The Brown camp believes Mr Blair has lost his political instincts and is an electoral liability.

Fourteen years after Granita, Mr Brown has finally struck.

    Ten years of pacts, pettiness and feuds, G, 7.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866494,00.html

Labour paralysed as the poison spreads

I'll go within a year, Blair to concede

Brown blamed for 'putsch' as 7 quit

September 07, 2006
The Times 
By Philip Webster, Political Editor

TONY BLAIR will try today to stabilise the crisis engulfing his leadership by saying publicly for the first time that he will be gone within a year.

The Prime Minister will bow to the wishes of his MPs as his party descends into civil war and allies of Gordon Brown are accused of plotting to remove him. After another day of turmoil during which he suffered seven government resignations over his determination to cling to office, the Prime Minister will remove any lingering doubts about his intention to quit next year and underline that he is committed to a stable and orderly transition.

His move follows two meetings yesterday with Gordon Brown and was said by Downing Street to have been agreed with the Chancellor.

It marks an astonishing about turn by Mr Blair after his interview with The Times last week in which he refused at least eight times to elaborate on the timing of his departure.

But the fury it provoked among his MPs has prompted him to change his mind in the hope that he can be given a chance to build his legacy in his last few months at the helm. Without it he could have faced a revolt that would have seen him turfed out of No 10.

It will be presented as evidence that Mr Blair and Mr Brown are working on the transition although it was clear last night that Mr Brown remains to be satisfied on several points.

The general mood among Labour’s warring factions was still poisonous last night. Mr Blair was reported to have called Mr Brown to assure him that he had not authorised briefings suggesting that the Chancellor was behind the plot attempt. It followed the two tense meetings between the pair, themselves a sign that Labour’s plight could hardly be worse.

In the first Mr Blair was said to have been bad-tempered, his anger at the behaviour of the rebels apparently boiling over. The second was said to have been “more positive”. “Both saw the need to cool down,” a source told The Times.

Mr Brown is understood to have told Mr Blair that a plan floated overnight for him to leave office next July was unacceptable. He is believed to have argued that the next leader — almost certainly him — must have time to establish himself in the Commons against David Cameron and to take legislative initiatives.

But it is believed that Mr Blair resisted calls from Mr Brown to state publicly a resignation timetable or to give any indication that he is ready to go before the Scottish and Welsh elections next May, which would be Mr Brown’s preference. Mr Brown is insisting that there should be more public evidence that the transition is taking place, with joint appearances after joint decision-making on key policies. Labour MPs said last night that if Mr Blair cleared the air over his departure next year that would allow him breathing space during which there could be detailed talks about a timetable.

Even so, there was fury in No 10 over the co-ordinated resignations of Tom Watson, the junior Defence Minister, and six parliamentary aides over about four hours. Senior Blairite allies were highlighting the links between several of those who had resigned, the anti-Blair union Amicus, and Mr Brown.

They described the moves as a 1970s-style union putsch and a “disgraceful attempt to blackmail the Prime Minister out of office”.

As the rift in Labour’s leadership grew, John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, flew home yesterday two days early from his family holiday in the Algarve.

Blairites were challenging Mr Brown to call off the attacks on Mr Blair. “One word from Gordon could stop this,” one said. “He has a very big choice — does he want to come to power on the back of a coup in which his supporters have been closely involved?” Mr Watson and the six aides had signed a letter calling on Mr Blair — as “utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers” — to step aside. Mr Watson, who was described as a close friend of Mr Brown by Blairite loyalists, resigned before Mr Blair could dismiss him. But Mr Blair swiftly called him “disloyal, discourteous and wrong”.

In a letter to Mr Watson last night Mr Blair raised the spectre of Labour’s 18 years in opposition — caused in part by the public perception that the party was disunited.

He said: “We are three years from the next election. We have a strong policy platform. For the first time ever, we have the prospect not just of two but three successive full terms. To put all this at risk in this way is simply not a sensible, mature or intelligent way of conducting ourselves if we want to remain a governing party.”

In India David Cameron said that the Government was in meltdown and Mr Blair was a lame-duck leader.

Later, a seventh Parliamentary Private Secretary resigned from office. Iain Wright, PPS in the Department of Health, said he “believed that the party and the Government cannot renew itself in office without urgently renewing the leadership”.


This is the full text of Monday's letter to the Prime Minister from 15 MPs, seven of whom resigned yesterday:

WE ARE writing this private letter as a group of MPs first elected in 2001, all of whom have been involved in the party and the wider Labour movement for a long time. We campaigned for your election as leader and fought alongside you to modernise the party under Neil Kinnock, John Smith and yourself.

We believe that you have been an exceptional Labour Prime Minister. The party and the nation owes you an incalculable debt of gratitude. Your leadership of our Government has revolutionised the lives and opportunities of millions of our citizens, combining social justice with prosperity to an extent which is unprecedented in the history of our country.

Having been with you on this journey for most of the last twenty years, we are proud of what Labour has been able to achieve under your leadership. We have always believed passionately in the same kind of modern, progressive, electable Labour Party that you do.

The permanent advancement of this kind of dynamic, electorally persuasive Labour Party is, and always has been, our project as much as yours. And it remains so.

We can and must win the next general election.

To do otherwise would be, unforgivably, to fail in our duty to the party and the country. This is as true now as it was a decade ago, and if the right choices are made in time, it will be true in another ten years.

Sadly, it is clear to us — as it is to almost the entire party and the entire country — that without an urgent change in the leadership of the party it becomes less likely that we will win that election.

That is the brutal truth. It gives us no pleasure to say it. But it has to be said. And understood.

This is not a plot against you by people who want to reverse or slow down the progress you have led. We are all as determined as you are that nothing should stand in its way.

But we believe that it is impossible for the party and the Government to renew itself without renewing its leadership as a matter of urgency.

As utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers, we therefore have to ask you to stand aside.


Chris Bryant (Rhondda), Tom Watson (West Bromwich East), Sion Simon (Birmingham Erdington), David Wright (Telford), Wayne David (Caerphilly), Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham Perry Barr), Jim Sheridan (Paisley & Renfrewshire North), Ian Lucas (Wrexham), Hywel Francis (Aberavon), Mark Tami (Alyn & Deeside), Kevan Jones (Durham North), Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North & Leith), Anne MacKechin (Glasgow North), David Hamilton (Midlothian), Chris Mole (Ipswich).

    Labour paralysed as the poison spreads, Ts, 7.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2346475,00.html

The Deal (III)

Brown can and must deliver Blair a dignified departure

September 07, 2006
The Times

Six days ago, Tony Blair conducted an interview with The Times in which he sought to curtail speculation about his future while declining to do more than send a coded signal about the timing of his departure. We stated here then that while his preference was “understand- able”, he would be “sorely mistaken if he assumed that he has all the cards” and that he could not “expect Delphic hints, nods and winks or a vague pledge about providing ‘ample time’ to be enough for his closest colleagues”. So it has proved. There has been a lively debate about telepathy in scientific circles this week. Telepathy is not the normal way for a prime minister to communicate to his political party.

As a result of that interview, in very large part, matters have moved yet further beyond Mr Blair’s control. He has been embarrassed by a leaked memo which set out a risible plan for a euphoric exit; obliged to allow David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, to broadcast that the conventional wisdom that Mr Blair would leave office next year was “reasonable”; and seen an alleged formal timeline surface in a newspaper. A junior minister and six parliamentary private secretaries have walked out on him. As dignified departures stand, Mr Blair’s plight appears less Songs of Praise than Hell on Earth.

Mr Blair will not, however, be the only politician to feel the heat if the current atmosphere cannot be cooled. The Labour Party spent much of yesterday looking as if it had acquired a collective deathwish. Options for dates upon which the Prime Minister might announce his resignation — September 2007, July 2007, March 2007, January 2007, next month, today — were being traded as if an unwanted item at a Dutch auction. It seemed that the proposed supercasino had already been built and put somewhere in the Westminster area. This is utter madness. Order, decorum and a degree of simple clarity have to be restored.

The task is not one for Mr Blair alone. In reality, authority in this domain has slipped away from Downing Street over to the Treasury. If Gordon Brown decided that he wanted Mr Blair to go forthwith, he could easily conspire to bring about that outcome and quite quickly. What he could not do, though, is credibly claim to have played no part in his demise. While the Prime Minister is not as popular as he once was with either public or party, he is not entirely without his admirers either.

The example of the Conservative Party, which is only just beginning to recover from the trauma of Margaret Thatcher’s political assassination 16 years ago, should send shivers down the Labour Party’s spine.

It is, therefore, in Mr Brown’s interests as much as Mr Blair’s to bring an end to this leadership crisis. They have to be seen together and speak as one, to communicate that a settlement has been reached to which each is bound and to ensure that while the change, entirely properly, will involve a significant shift in political style it will not be one which — in domestic or foreign policy — triggers a fundamental transformation in substance. Other members of the Cabinet have to be brought into this compact, partly, to be frank, as witnesses, but also to ensure that it is not seen as a private treaty from which the Labour Party is excluded. There has to be The Deal (III).

It is not absolutely necessary for the Prime Minister to name a precise date — January 11? March 11? April 25? — for the formal transfer of office. He should say, personally and publicly, that the imminent party conference in Manchester will be his last as leader. This would defuse much of the tension. It should also be patently obvious to all, party process aside, that Mr Blair and Mr Brown are comfortable with the agreed calendar, whether it be before or after the elections next May. If that is achieved, Mr Blair can spend a few final months in office setting out the coming challenges that he believes Britain will face in a series of serious speeches (and not tacky media stunts), while Mr Brown can prepare properly for the assumption of power.

None of this is impossible to secure. The notion that the official machine will grind to a halt in these conditions is abject nonsense. If Whitehall knows that a policy initiative is blessed by Mr Blair and Mr Brown, then it will proceed with the implementation. Civil servants would not twiddle thumbs in such circumstances because they were unsure whether the Campaign Group of hard-left Labour MPs was enthusiastic about the proposal concerned. The British constitution is a device of the lightest plastic, not the hardest iron. It can be extremely malleable if those in high places are ready to be flexible. Mr Blair must appreciate that he has to bend. Will Mr Brown contort as well?

He certainly should. For all of their disputes over the years, the competing interpretations of what was said first in a restaurant in Islington in 1994 and then in front of John Prescott at his Admiralty Arch apartment a decade later, Mr Blair and Mr Brown remain locked in a symbiotic political relationship. Granita has long closed and the Deputy Prime Minister is defunct also. The past must not become a prison.

The future of the Labour Party, this Government and Britain as an actor in world affairs depends on the two men being determined that one tenure will not end in a bloody shambles while another would start stained by factional chaos from which it never recovers. They have hours, not even days, never mind weeks, to settle on an accord, shared with others, from which there can be no recasting, retreat or revision.

Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, once observed that Mr Brown was akin to a figure in a Shakespearean tragedy, a prince who would never wear the crown. Yet it is Mr Blair who now needs his rival to support him. If Mr Brown concluded, in the spirit of Macbeth, that “if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”, the Prime Minister is surely destined to be his Duncan. The Chancellor should, nevertheless, remember what was the ultimate fate of a once great Scotsman, Macbeth.

    The Deal (III), Ts, 7.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-2346203,00.html

Exit crisis engulfs No 10 as seven loyalists quit Government

September 06, 2006
Times Online
By Philippe Naughton

Tony Blair's authority as Prime Minister - and his desire to cling to office until next summer - were in tatters today after seven junior members of his Government resigned in protest at his refusal to lay out a clear timetable for his departure.

The seven were among a group of 17 formerly loyal MPs who signed a letter yesterday calling on the Prime Minister to name his resignation date, something that he has refused to do since announcing before the last election that he would not be seeking a fourth term in power.

The first resignation, and the most damaging, was that of Tom Watson, a junior defence minister and Blairite loyalist who has a safe seat in West Bromwich East.

That was followed by the departure of Khalid Mahmood, then came a joint resignation letter from Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami and David Wright - all parliamentary private secretaries - before Chris Mole, also a ministerial aide, joined the exodus.

Mr Watson's "Dear Tony" letter paid tribute to Mr Blair both as Labour leader and Prime Minister, but declared that it was no longer in the interest of either the party or the country that he continue in office.

"How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters," he wrote. "I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the party and the Government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership."

Mr Blair's reaction was fast and furious - clearly betraying the gravity of the situation. Within minutes of Mr Watson announcing his decision to resign, he released an extraordinary statement to say that he had been planning to fire him anyway.

"Had he come to me privately and expressed his view about the leadership, that would have been one thing. But to sign a round robin letter which was then leaked to the press was disloyal, discourteous and wrong," Mr Blair said. "It would therefore have been impossible for him to remain in Government."

He followed that up with a personal letter to Mr Watson expressing regret at his departure, but adding: "We are three years from the next election. We have a strong policy platform. There is no fundamental ideological divide in the Labour Party for the first time in 100 years of history.

"For the first time ever, we have the prospect not just of two but three successive full terms. To put all this at risk in this way is simply not a sensible, mature or intelligent way of conducting ourselves if we want to remain a governing party."

The torrent of resignations appears to have put paid to Downing Street’s attempt to keep the lid on the crisis by letting it be known, via The Sun newspaper, that Mr Blair intended to resign as Labour leader on May 31, setting off a leadership contest that will see his successor enter No 10 by July 26.

That timetable had appeared to satisfy Glenda Jackson, the former minister who has been one of Mr Blair's most vocal critics. Ms Jackson said that he should now be given the space to implement that timetable.

But in his resignation letter, Mr Watson, who is best known as Britain's first blogging MP, made clear that a nod and a wink was not enough and what the party needed was clarity.

Mr Blair will soon face another challenge to his authority. The Times reported today that a further group of around 100 MPs are planning to warn the Prime Minister that he must confirm his resignation timetable in public if he wants to avoid a humiliating leadership challenge.

The pressure will now be on Mr Blair to clarify his departure plans in his address to the party conference in Manchester in three weeks' time - failing which a challenge appears likely.

If he does decide to name a date then, his colleagues will be eager to avoid a long drawn-out contest that could damage Labour before Scottish, Welsh and local elections next May, raising the possibility that he will be forced from office before the tenth anniversary of his first election win on May 1.

In an interview with The Times last week, Mr Blair said that he had no intention of saying any more than he already had about his likely departure date. That interview dismayed former loyalists, including Chris Bryant, the MP for Rhondda, and Sion Simon, the MP for Birmingham Erdington, and led to yesterday's damaging letter.

Mr Blair's warning about the risks of a divided party were echoed by Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, who told Labour MPs that it was "madness" to demand conditions from the Prime Minister.

Ms Hewitt said that the lesson of the 1980s was that if Labour turned its backs on the public, the British people will turn their backs on the party.

She went on: "It is madness for some Labour MPs to demand conditions from the Prime Minister, who has led us to three unprecedented election victories and who has made it clear that he will step down next year.

"It is equal madness for others to suggest that Gordon Brown must be tied down to a ’Blairite’ programme for the next ten years before he can become leader.

"The debate about Labour’s future direction is already under way, as we tackle problems like pensions, public health and security. This debate will rightly intensify during the leader and deputy leadership elections and continue through the process of agreeing the next manifesto that will be led by the new leader.

"We know from experience in government that when we involve the public in these debates, the policy outcomes are stronger and more effective. We must then involve the public in Labour’s debate.

"Everyone knows that the contest for the new leadership will take place next year. In the meantime, Tony Blair as leader and prime minister is entitled to expect at least as much loyalty and discipline as the next leader will rightly demand from the Labour Party."

    Exit crisis engulfs No 10 as seven loyalists quit Government, Ts, 6.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2345344,00.html

Analysis: how long can Blair survive?

September 06, 2006
Times Online

Philip Webster, Political Editor of The Times, examines the fallout from the resignation of seven junior members of Tony Blair's Government this morning and asks how long the Prime Minister can now survive:

"It's hugely damaging, hugely damaging for the Government, damaging for Tony Blair and damaging for Gordon Brown, his expected successor. There's a feeling of meltdown around the place - one minister has gone, seven PPSs, in what appears to be a co-ordinated move.

"People have seized on the fact that Tony Blair has been weakened and they're out to damage him. There's no doubt that there is a calculated move to oust Mr Blair and he has gone on the attack in an extraordinary way by treating a very junior minister as though he were a member of the Cabinet, attacking him as disloyal, discourteous and wrong.

But although Mr Blair's upped the ante, there's very much a feeling of the Prime Minister being under siege in No 10.

"It's damaging to Mr Brown because the last thing that he wanted was to take over a riven Labour Party and there is a lot of bad blood around and will be even more if Mr Blair is forced out. He will be blamed for that even though he does not need to orchestrate any moves against Mr Blair.

"The opposition to Mr Blair has now gone well beyond the Brownite ranks and that's where Downing Street has been out of touch. Even quite loyal Blair supporters feel now that the time is up and Downing Street never saw that coming.

"We're waiting now to hear whether Tony Blair has got anything more to say. He's in Downing Street and due to talk to Gordon Brown. Whether he will say more about his leadership plans, given the clamour, we will see, but at the moment there's only one question - how long can he survive?

"I think the chances of him being able to complete the May 31 timetable, leaving Downing Street in July, are very slight and the pressure will be on him to hand over before the Scottish and Welsh elections next year so that they don't become a referendum on his leadership and a new leader can use them as a launch pad for a two-year premiership.

"The Prime Minister is going to the Middle East at the weekend and he will have to say something before then, if only to give himself a breathing space before the Labour Conference starts on September 24."

    Analysis: how long can Blair survive?, Ts, 6.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2345693,00.html

6pm update

Blair faces crisis over resignations

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

Tony Blair today faced an implosion of his authority after seven government members resigned in protest at his refusal to publicly name a departure date.

After today's Sun claimed Mr Blair would resign as Labour leader next May and step down as PM in July, a junior minister and six parliamentary private secretaries quit in rapid succession on a day of high Westminster drama.

Although all seven resignations were from junior posts, the fact that each MP had been a loyal Blairite led the Conservative leader, David Cameron, to claim the government was "divided and in meltdown".

The Liberal Democrat leader, Menzies Campbell, said the national interest was "not being served by the continuing uncertainty over Mr Blair".

The chancellor, Gordon Brown, was spotted leaving the rear of Downing Street earlier today after what was reported to be an angry and uresolved conversation with the prime minister.

Unlike in previous crises, there was a conspicuous lack of cabinet ministers taking to the airwaves to defend the prime minister.

However, the former cabinet minister David Blunkett warned Mr Brown and his supporters to "back off".

"It is now in Gordon Brown's - and the Labour party's - best interests for those seeking the prime minister's immediate departure to back off," Mr Blunkett said.

"This is not only to avoid our opponents exploiting the impression of disintegration and division, but also to avoid the split of our party, which would have lasting consequences."

Mr Brown has made no public comment on the unfolding events today.

Problems mount ahead of conference

Labour now appears to be facing an imminent and serious crisis, with little more than two weeks to go before the party conference in Manchester.

Although Mr Blair went into last year's election promising not to stand again, his declaration to serve a "full third term" was quickly changed to allowing his successor "ample" time to settle in.

In a Times interview last week, he made it clear he would not set a public departure date. Today's report in the Sun was not denied outright by Downing Street, with a spokesman instead describing it as "speculation".

The first resignation this morning was the junior defence minister, Tom Watson, followed by six parliamentary private secretaries.

All had yesterday signed a round robin letter calling on Mr Blair to publicly state his exit date, thereby making their official government positions all but untenable.

The six PPSs who have quit are Khalid Mahmood, Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami, David Wright and Chris Mole.

Their departures followed 48 hours of leaks and rampant speculation about an exit timetable.

A parliamentary private secretary is the most junior role in government, essentially a conduit between ministers and backbenchers.

In his resignation letter, Mr Mole wrote that the discontent was not from "usual suspects, but mainstream, supportive colleagues who fear for the interests of the party and country".

Loyal cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt said it would be "madness" for MPs to dictate terms to Mr Blair.

Major dates on the political horizon include the return of parliament in October, the Queen's speech in November, Scottish and Welsh elections next May and the chancellor's comprehensive spending review - which will set spending limits until 2011 - in the summer.

The PM also faces questioning in the police investigation into Labour's role in the alleged "cash for peerages" affair.

Blair: minister disloyal, discourteous and wrong

In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Watson wrote: "It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country."

The PM hit back at the junior minister, calling him "disloyal, discourteous and wrong" for having signed the letter.

In a statement, he said: "I had been intending to dismiss him, but wanted to extend to him the courtesy of speaking to him first. Had he come to me privately and expressed his view about the leadership, that would have been one thing.

"But to sign a round robin letter which was then leaked to the press was disloyal, discourteous and wrong. It would therefore have been impossible for him to remain in government."

The deepening crisis comes ahead of a likely visit to the Middle East by Mr Blair.

Reacting to the resignations, Downing Street announced that Derek Twigg would move from the Department of Transport to replace Mr Watson as junior defence minister. Tom Harris joins the government to replace Mr Twigg as transport minister.

After two conflicting round robin letters from Labour MPs yesterday - one calling for Mr Blair to announce a departure date and the other saying that leaving before the 2007 conference was enough - a succession of cabinet ministers went public to say indications of his departure within a year were sufficient.

The environment secretary, David Miliband - often tipped as a future Labour leader - yesterday said it was "reasonable" to assume Mr Blair would be gone within 12 months.

Cabinet ministers appear to have coalesced around this choice of words after yesterday's Mirror revealed details of a "farewell tour" to be made by the PM next summer.

In addition to Mr Miliband and Hilary Armstrong, the social exclusion minister, other Blair allies - Hilary Benn, the international development secretary, and Sir Jeremy Beecham, the chairman of Labour's national executive committee - yesterday said they expected a new leader to be in place within 12 months.

John McDonnell, a left-wing Labour MP, has already pledged to stand against Gordon Brown on an unashamedly socialist platform.

If Mr Blair resigned on May 31, it would mean he had been the prime minister for 10 years and 30 days - still short of Mrs Thatcher's 11 years at the helm.

    Blair faces crisis over resignations, G, 6.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1865980,00.html

This is a coup

September 6, 2006 05:01 PM
Guardian
Martin Kettle


In more than 100 years of its history, the Labour party has never had a leadership coup. But it's got one now and, rather like in a real coup d'etat, it's too early to say whether this one is going to succeed or what its legacy will be.

Let's assume that Gordon Brown's coup works and that he now drives Tony Blair from office much earlier than even the reduced timetable to which Blair is now reconciled - in other words that he forces Blair to quit any time between now and early 2007.

The legacy of that will be threefold. First, it will leave a certain amount of individual bitterness at the top, which will mean that some Blairites - perhaps even Blair himself - will finally feel emboldened to tell the world (even if the world isn't interested) what they think about Brown and the way he has operated over the past 12 years.

Second, it will leave a traumatised party which could - in spite of Labour's 100-year history of pulling together when it matters - create ideological divides of the kind that haven't been seen in its ranks since the Bennite insurgency of the late 1970s and early 80s. In the short run it guarantees an even more difficult conference later this month. In the long run it could even lead to splits in the Labour party itself.

And third, it will have a destructive effect on Labour's standing in the country. Voters do not like divided parties. They have a long record of punishing them whenever they get the chance. Now that there is a presentable Tory party for the first time in more than a decade, there is every chance that a large tranche of voters will say it's time to give the other lot a chance.

Brown is taking a fantastic risk in mounting this coup. If it fails, like the forerunner attempt in May did, he will have caused mayhem in the Labour party with no reward. If he overcomes his caution and sees it through this time, though, he could be winning a pyrrhic victory. And by ousting his one-time ally, he may achieve something that until now seemed wholly impossible - stirring up sympathy for Blair.

    This is a coup, G, 6.9.2006, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2006/09/is_this_finally_gordon_browns.html

3pm

Government aides' resignation letter

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Here is the text of the letter of resignation from parliamentary private secretaries Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami and David Wright:

Dear Tony

We have been honoured to serve as members under your leadership since entering the Commons in 2001.

The process of renewal and reinvigoration that your premiership has inspired is without precedent.

In each of our constituencies remarkable achievements have resulted directly from the policies of Labour governments since 1997.

All of us rightly regard ourselves as loyal to the Labour party and yourself over many years.

We believe however that you have not ended the uncertainty over when you intend to leave office, which is damaging the government and the party.

The letter signed by other parliamentary colleagues organised by Karen Buck, fails to address this issue and we are unable to put our names to it.

We have vitally important Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and English local authority elections next year and we must resolve this matter well in advance of these.

It is with great sadness that we feel under the circumstances we have no alternative but to resign as parliamentary private secretaries.

Yours ever,

Wayne David MP, Caerphilly
Ian Lucas MP, Wrexham
Mark Tami MP, Alyn & Deeside
David Wright MP, Telford.

    Government aides' resignation letter, G, 6.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1866089,00.html

Full text: Tony Blair's letter to Tom Watson

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The full text of Tony Blair's letter to Tom Watson following Mr Watson's announcement of his resignation:

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your letter. I am sorry it has come to this. You did a good job as a minister and I thank you for it.

I know you have worked hard for the Labour party throughout your life. I also accept entirely that you are entitled to your view about the best way for the Labour party to renew in office.

But as you will know from the long years of opposition we have endured, Labour only came to power after putting behind it the divisive behaviour of the past and uniting around a modern vision for both country and party.

The way to renew and win again now is not to engage in a divisive - and since I have already made it clear I will be leaving before the election - totally unnecessary attempt to unseat the party leader, less than 15 months after our historic third term victory; but through setting out the policy agenda for the future combined with a stable and orderly transition that leaves ample time for the next leader to bed in.

We are three years from the next election. We have a strong policy platform. There is no fundamental ideological divide in the Labour party for the first time in 100 years of history. For the first time ever, we have the prospect not just of two but three successive full terms.

To put all this at risk in this way is simply not a sensible, mature or intelligent way of conducting ourselves if we want to remain a governing party.

So I am sorry we are in disagreement.

Yours ever,

Tony

    Full text: Tony Blair's letter to Tom Watson, G, 6.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1866074,00.html

11.45am

Full text of Tom Watson's letter

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Here is the text of the letter from Tom Watson, junior defence minister, to Prime Minister Tony Blair:

Dear Tony

The Labour party has been my life since I was 15 years old.

I have served the party at every conceivable level and your own leadership since 1994 in a dozen different capacities, latterly as MP for West Bromwich East, a government whip, and as parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Defence.

My loyalty to you personally, as well as to the party and the values we stand for, has been absolute and unswerving.

The struggle to fashion the kind of credible, convincing, effective Labour party you now lead has been the preoccupation of my adult years.

My pride in what our government has achieved under your leadership is beyond expression.

We have revolutionised the lives and expectations of millions of our citizens, combining social justice with prosperity in a way which is unprecedented in the history of our country.

Your leadership has been visionary and remarkable. The party and the nation owes you an incalculable debt.

So it is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country.

How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters.

I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the party and the government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership.

For the sake of the legacy you have long said is the only one that matters - a renewed Labour party re-elected at the next general election - I urge you to reconsider your determination to remain in office.

As you know, I had a conversation with the chief whip last night, in which she asked me to withdraw my support from the 2001 intake's letter calling on you to stand down, or my position would be untenable as a government minister.

I have reflected on this overnight. I cannot withdraw my name, and therefore I accept her judgement.

I do not believe that statements so far give us the clarity necessary to progress over the next year.

Nor do I believe that newspaper reports of potential dates which may have appeared since I signed the 2001 intake's letter can provide the clarity the party and the country so desperately need.

It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must leave the government.

Yours ever,

Tom Watson MP

West Bromwich East

    Full text of Tom Watson's letter, G, 6.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866017,00.html








 

Blair's offer: I will go in a year Brown: that's not good enough

Chancellor demands a timetable, a public declaration and for his Blairite critics to be muzzled

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Gordon Brown made clear yesterday that Tony Blair's coded offer to leave Downing Street within the next 12 months was not good enough.
Allies of the chancellor said that Mr Brown was demanding that the prime minister set a timetable for his departure and make the details public.

Mr Brown also wants Mr Blair to rein in the chancellor's critics, such as Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn, who have been making speeches and writing newspaper articles arguing that Blairite reforms be continued after he has stepped down.

Mr Brown's unhappiness at the way No 10 is trying to engineer Mr Blair's departure became clear during a day of high drama at Westminster, in which No 10 gave vital ground by openly backing a statement from the cabinet minister David Miliband that Mr Blair would be gone within a year.

He is the most senior minister to make such a claim, and No 10's endorsement means Mr Blair has been forced to shift position in the past week since vowing to say no more on his departure date.

Downing Street officials last night denied claims in today's Sun that Mr Blair plans to resign as Labour leader on May 31 and step down as prime minister - after a leadership election - on July 26. "They've pulled these dates out of the air," said one. Last week the Guardian reported that Mr Blair would step down next summer with an announcement most likely to come before elections to the Welsh assembly and Scottish parliament on May 3, 2007.

The developments came as the scale of party unrest and divisions were underlined by a series of letters from coalitions of MPs.

· As revealed in the Guardian yesterday, two former Blairite loyalists, Sion Simon and Chris Bryant, have drafted a letter calling on Mr Blair to stand down now. The Guardian has learned that this letter has the support of six parliamentary private secretaries and Tom Watson, the defence minister and former Treasury whip. Downing Street said last night that it had received the letter, but that it had been sent to a random fax machine, with no warning phone call or covering note. It was marked private and confidential. A separate letter from the 2005 intake has been drawn up, with the West Ham MP Lyn Brown seen as an important figure.

· A letter with much broader cross-party support is also being drafted and is expected to demand that Mr Blair either leave now, or before the Welsh and Scottish elections. At least 80 MPs are prepared to go public over this letter, though some others will refuse to declare themselves. It is expected to be put to Mr Blair by the end of the week. The aim is that a party grandee or delegation will visit Mr Blair and tell him privately that his support has eroded permanently.

· In an attempt to shore up Mr Blair's position, whips secured the support of more than 60 Labour MPs welcoming the statement by Mr Miliband that there would be a stable and orderly transition leading to a new leader by the conference in 2007. That gave the party the certainty it needed. One of the organisers, the left-of-centre former minister Karen Buck, said Mr Blair would be gone "within months" and urged people not to turn an "orderly transition into a crisis of regicide".

Despite the pressure mounting on Downing Street, Mr Blair was still refusing last night to cave in to demands that he make public the promise to go within a year. His aides fear that it would terminally undermine his remaining authority.

Mr Blair's closest allies say that the prime minister gave Mr Brown a clear written timetable in spring of his plans for retirement next year. They also say senior MPs, such as Mr Milburn, cannot be silenced in any debate about the party's future.

In a sign of the naked power struggle raging at the top, Mr Blair's allies also pointed the finger at supporters of Mr Brown for leaking an embarrassing memo, drawn up in Downing Street in April, setting out an exit strategy for Mr Blair that included slots on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and a farewell tour designed to embed Blairism. The memo had the effect of making Mr Blair look vainglorious and obsessed about his legacy. His spokesman said Mr Blair and senior staff had never seen the memo.

Tony Wright, the independent-minded Labour MP for Cannock Chase, told Channel 4 News the rebels were "taking self-indulgence to the point of self-destruction". He said: "People are living in a kind of fantasy land. What do they think is going to happen the day after Tony Blair has gone? The problems are going to be the same, the solutions are going to be the same, and nothing much is going to happen to the opinion polls. Governing is tough."

However, the chair of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, Sir Jeremy Beecham, echoed Mr Miliband that a new party leader would be in place by this time in 2007.

The former local government minister Nick Raynsford said: "What we need is a date in the reasonably near future so that early next year we have the prospect of a new leader and a good period of time - a good two to three years before the next general election - for that leader to focus on delivering on a strong economy, improving public services, improving Britain's standing."

In Strasbourg, MEP Gary Titley told Westminster colleagues to back off. "The electorate chose Tony Blair as prime minister and Labour as their government 18 months ago," he said. "A small number of MPs risk throwing our government into paralysis. Tony Blair has spent nine years delivering Labour priorities. The party and elected members should allow him to continue to focus on our policy and manifesto priorities."

    Blair's offer: I will go in a year Brown: that's not good enough, G, 6.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1865758,00.html

New Labour MPs to call on Blair to quit

PM faces pressure from ex-loyalists

Tuesday September 5, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Tony Blair's position has been further undermined by the drafting of a private letter from a majority of the 2001 intake of Labour MPs urging him to resign.

The letter has been coordinated by two formerly ardent Blairite MPs, Sion Simon and Chris Bryant. Its contents were being kept secret yesterday. However, its existence suggests the prime minister is by no means free from the political pressure that grew last week for him to stand down before his preferred, though unstated, private date of 2007.

It is understood the letter was organised at the weekend in the wake of Mr Blair's decision to announce that he would not give to the Labour conference this month a date, or timetable for his departure. It was not clear last night whether the letter had been sent.

Last night, the BBC reported that a second, similar letter from the 2005 intake was being prepared. Others may be being drafted in what could be seen as a pincer movement against the prime minister.

Mr Simon refused to comment yesterday, saying: "If such a confidential letter existed, its existence and contents would remain confidential." Mr Bryant was not available last night. However, one of the MPs involved in the letter said: "If the prime minister has decided that to set a timetable will undermine his authority, and his authority is already undermined, the obvious thing is for him to go now."

A total of 38 Labour MPs were elected for the first time in 2001. Not all of them have signed the letter, but No 10 will have been struck that it has been organised by two MPs who had seemed to be an integral part of the New Labour project.

Critics will claim the signatories are disappointed MPs who failed to achieve ministerial office, and may hope for preferment under the premiership of Gordon Brown. The impact may depend on the numbers of signatories. If 80 MPs rallied behind a call for a leadership election, the ballot would go ahead under party rules.

Mr Simon, the MP for Birmingham Erdington and a journalist, has supported many of Mr Blair's most controversial policies, including the Iraq war, student top-up fees, anti-terror laws and identity cards. But at the weekend he warned of New Labour complacency and said: "Except for serving ministers, I do not know a single Labour member or supporter who thinks it is in the public interest for us to carry on like this any longer."

Mr Bryant, the MP for Rhondda and an advocate of an elected second chamber, recently resigned as private parliamentary secretary to the constitutional affairs secretary, Lord Falconer.

Mr Blair was yesterday on a two-day tour to highlight the government's fight against social exclusion. It will culminate in a speech at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in York today designed to show his commitment to core Labour issues. It will come on the day that the former home secretary Charles Clarke sets out his criticisms of New Labour in his first major speech since leaving the cabinet.

At the weekend, cabinet support for Mr Blair's stance did not seem to erode, and it was agreed that his supporters should participate in the debate about the party's future with policy speeches.

In a further development yesterday, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, pointedly refused to rule himself out as a candidate for the Labour leadership. He has already said he will be a candidate for the deputy leadership when Mr Blair and his deputy, John Prescott, stand down.

Mr Johnson yesterday strongly defended the prime minister's decision not to set a date for his resignation, saying he believed the party understood that it would be "a gift to the opposition parties".

Mr Blair might travel to Israel as early as this weekend in an attempt to play a role in restarting Palestinian peace talks. Reports from Jerusalem said he would be meeting the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, on Saturday, but Downing Street declined to confirm this. The prime minister's spokesman said: "A visit is not an end in itself. A visit would be to try to get people to start the process of re-engagement. The ambition is no higher than that."

    New Labour MPs to call on Blair to quit, G, 4.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1865108,00.html

If the prime minister sounds menacing, just ignore him

Blair is at last returning to the unfinished business of high-risk families. But there is no need for him to reinvent the wheel

Tuesday September 5, 2006
The Guardian
Polly Toynbee


Why does he do it? Tony Blair cannot resist affronting his natural allies. So when talking to the BBC about his plans to intervene early and intensively with problem families, he relished stirring a hornet's nest. Everyone involved with the policy groaned. "Well, that's just the PM," sighed one of the policy's Downing Street authors.

And so his promise to prevent children from high-risk families turning into "a menace to society" drew needless fire from every side. It didn't even please the Daily Mail: "Critics dubbed it the ultimate encroachment of the nanny state into the home," its front page claimed. The madder Tory commentators saw social workers poised to invade every home in Kensington and Chelsea. Heath drew a cartoon of gun-toting police raiding a maternity ward.

Blair may have enjoyed the overreaction on the Guardian letters page yesterday. An academic claimed that targeting teenage mothers "reveals an implicit nuclear family bias". Even dottier, a professor emeritus, no less, claimed: "Blair ... cannot be ignorant of the policies which led to sterilisation and ultimately extermination of antisocial groups in Germany. It could happen here if people do not protest." Ho hum.

Blair's advisers hope that he may be less rebarbative in his keynote speech today, addressing child poverty experts and economists in that haven of sanity and social justice, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. But whatever the tone, here is a welcome return to Labour's most fruitful policy-making from the early months in power in 1997, when 18 policy groups explored every cause of and solution to social exclusion from a unit under the PM's close patronage. The resulting policies have changed many lives on the 2,000 worst estates.

But he lost interest as he put keeping the middle classes on board ahead of services for the neediest. School targets urged better academic results, not improving the life chances of children who might never shine. In the NHS, waiting lists came before more health visitors and help for families in trouble.

Were the middle classes a political necessity? Until Iraq blew everything off course, disabling his political radar, Blair was adept at balancing the needs of the poor with middle-class demands. But it was a constant source of conflict as Gordon Brown fought to keep money flowing into tax credits to hit the child poverty target Blair announced in 1998 (but perhaps later regretted).

Now in the last days Blair returns to unfinished business. Cynics may say it's his annual pre-conference party pleaser, but in recent months he has pored over the evidence and changed his mind in important ways. Not long ago he was overinfluenced by heads in prestige schools warning that the "every child matters" policy, obliging schools to provide health and social care and after-school clubs to reach the most deprived, was distracting from academic excellence. But in the past two months that policy, devised by Margaret Hodge and championed against the tide by Beverley Hughes, her successor as children's minister, is back with new emphasis.

This is very good news. Worried directors of children's services will heave a sigh of relief. Under this policy, they strive to pull together the separate silos and budgets of health, education and social services with key workers to stop different services visiting the same families ineffectively over and over again.

They estimate 2.5% of families are in the deepest trouble - the addicts, the mentally ill or those who shun all officialdom. Some of their children may become "menaces to society": most will lead miserable, stunted childhoods and never recover. Those first three years of life are critical - a short window to intervene but a lifetime for a child. The government is watching results from the Incredible Years programme pioneered by Dr Judy Hutchings in Sure Start in Wales: children of 42% of parents on the highly structured scheme showed lasting behaviour improvement, compared with just 7% in a control group.

Whatever Blair implies today, this policy is not about punishment. As now, coercion only applies when children are perilously close to entering care. If offered the right help, most parents take it gladly: the birth of a child is a moment when health visitors are welcomed in.

But will Blair confront the real barriers? Schools need targets concerning these children, not just exam results. Primary care trusts have no targets for children at risk, so NHS cuts are now harming children's programmes - the NHS budget for tackling teen pregnancy has just been slashed from £18m to £5m. Will the forthcoming green paper on teen pregnancy tackle that? NHS deficits mean at least 73 trusts have cut health visitor posts, according to a Netmums survey and the Health Visitors' Association. But without a universal service of well-trained health visitors in every children's centre, nothing will happen.

Atangle of competing voices within government is now busily reinventing the wheel. Does Blair actually know that the Department for Education and Skills has already bought £7m worth of health visitors in pilot areas to identify and visit problem families every week for two years, and draw them into children's centres? Another 12 pilots start soon, testing different parenting programmes for success and cost-effectiveness.

Finally - a big one - as the evidence reveals what works, dare the government insist local authorities actually do it? Intensive programmes with proven results are needed everywhere to reach children in the worst circumstances. Or will this conflict with Ruth Kelly's coming devolution paper, letting councils (mainly Tory) do as they please?

Listen carefully to the PM's speech today. If he sounds menacing, ignore it; none of his ministers will carry out any threats. Listen instead to how he tackles the real barriers - forcing the NHS to divert more of its vast resources to prevention and family mental health, forcing schools to care for the whole child and every child. Does he understand the hardest message for all politicians: there are few quick wins in changing deep-rooted behaviour? Good results take a generation, at least. The US Head Start scheme that inspired Sure Start took 30 years to prove that the emotional and psychological benefits protected children without necessarily translating into instant academic triumph.

And will he admit at last that growing inequality multiplies all these problems?

    If the prime minister sounds menacing, just ignore him, G, 5.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1864994,00.html

New blow for Blair over his policy on Lebanon

September 02, 2006
The Times
By Richard Beeston and Tom Baldwin

TONY BLAIR’S growing isolation was laid bare last night, when it emerged that he ditched his deeply unpopular policy on Lebanon after a “devastating” letter from his most trusted ambassador.

The Times has learnt that the Prime Minister softened his hardline stance on the Lebanon war after Sir David Manning, Britain’s Ambassador to Washington, sent him an impassioned letter bemoaning the failure of British policy.

Mr Blair was under further attack yesterday as normally loyal MPs, including senior backbenchers and ex-ministers, unleashed a torrent of public criticism after he told The Times that he would not set a timetable for leaving No 10.

Andrew Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “I would have thought it’s clear to everyone that the debilitating uncertainty over the leadership can’t go on — it’s bad for the country, bad for the Government, bad for the Labour Party and, ultimately, bad for Tony Blair himself.”

Last night the Foreign Office threatened to seek an injunction against The Times if it published Sir David’s letter, but no further contact was made.

As the Middle East conflict intensified in July, Mr Blair was already under fire from Cabinet colleagues and the media. But sources said that the hardest hitting criticism came from Sir David. “It had a huge impact in Downing Street,” one source said. “It was as candid as the letter by the outgoing Ambassador to Baghdad [William Patey]” who had given warning of civil war in Iraq.

After the letter from Sir David, Mr Blair shifted quickly from solid support of President Bush, and a refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in the fighting, to calling openly for an urgent ceasefire. Mr Blair hopes now to rehabilitate his damaged reputation at home and abroad by launching a peace mission to the Middle East next weekend, in time to face his critics at the Labour Party conference on September 24.

Sir David is more than just Britain’s most senior envoy, with close relations to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State. He was Mr Blair’s top foreign policy adviser over 9/11 and through the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Previously he was Ambassador to Tel Aviv.

In the first two weeks of the Lebanon war Britain mirrored US policy, insisting that it would be pointless to demand an end to the fighting until a mechanism was in place to keep the peace. In the region this approach was regarded widely as allowing Israel a free hand to step up its assault on Hezbollah and destroy Lebanon’s infrastructure.

Mr Blair was keenly aware of the damage being done to his international standing. Nevertheless he reiterated the policy side by side with President Bush on July 28 at the White House, when the two men refused pointedly to call for a immediate ceasefire.

But according to British diplomats, Sir David then made a second attempt. This time the two men spoke alone and at length as Mr Blair travelled to California for public engagements without his normal No 10 retinue. “The Downing Street aides went home leaving Manning to work on Blair,” a British official said. “Manning urged Blair to be more robust in calling for a ceasefire and criticising US policy.”

Britain, which has never played a leading role in Lebanese affairs, was being damaged unnecessarily. Also, Sir David feared that the conflict could grow and that hardliners in the Bush Administration could push Israel to extend its campaign to Syria. Mr Blair was told he must bolster the position of Dr Rice and moderates at the State Department.

The result was dramatic. On July 30 Mr Blair called for “an urgent cessation of hostilities” and spoke about the need for a new peace initiative. Two days later at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council he called for a “complete renaissance” of foreign policy. He said that the battle against militant Islam could not be won by force alone.

Today Mr Blair privately concedes that he has been damaged by his stand on the war in Lebanon, but believes that he can salvage his reputation. Next Saturday Mr Blair travels to the Middle East when he hopes to revive the peace process.

    New blow for Blair over his policy on Lebanon, Ts, 2.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2339412,00.html

A nudge and a wink is not enough, Prime Minister

September 02, 2006
The Times
Politcal analysis by Peter Riddell

TONY BLAIR, a Monty Python fan, has adopted the “nudge nudge, wink wink” strategy. The theme of his interview with The Times was “you know what I mean but I cannot say it out loud without ruining the rest of my premiership”. He did not give an Eric Idle-like wink but . . .

During the 50-minute interview, and a conversation afterwards, Mr Blair repeatedly refused to indicate a precise date. Yet if you read what he did say, his meaning is obvious. First, he contrasted himself with Margaret Thatcher in 1990 by promising that he would not go “on and on and on”. Secondly, he said he would give “ample time for his successor”. Listening to him in the Chequers drawing room, I was not alone in concluding that this means he expects to announce his departure in the late spring or early summer of next year.

For Mr Blair, that should be enough for “reasonable people”. At one level that sounds a fair and defensible strategy. Mr Blair has said more about his future than any previous Prime Minister, and setting out a detailed timetable now would turn him even more into a lame duck, probably bringing forward his departure.

However, we are not in reasonable times. Many Labour ministers, MPs and activists, who would have given him the benefit of the doubt a few years ago, are no longer willing to do so. Of course, attitudes vary from his diehard enemies to normal loyalists who believe that the uncertainty is damaging the Labour Party, as well as their own chances of survival.

The worry for Mr Blair is the latter group. They do not want to push him out in a bloody coup. They want a dignified exit for the leader who has led Labour to three election victories after four losses in a row. But they believe that the exit should be planned and co-ordinated, and seen to be so. They want the “stable and orderly transition” to be explicit, not implicit.

It is not just the timetable for his departure. Equally explosive is the debate about policy. For Mr Blair, it is “new Labour or bust”, with more of his choice and diversity agenda in schools and health. He is right. While fulfilling the union and hard-Left wish list on industrial relations laws and spending is obviously lunatic, and electorally suicidal, it would also be dangerous to tone down the new Labour aspects of policy. Gordon Brown recognises this, as shown by his repeated emphasis on being a reformer. But not all his allies do.

The problem — and measure of the current mood of mistrust — is that the Brownites accuse the Blairites of trying to tie the hands of a Brown premiership. That has made the Brownites sensitive about recent remarks by Stephen Byers, notably on inheritance tax, which were not discussed with Mr Blair. But the Blairites believe there should be an open debate now.

However, nudges and winks are no longer enough. Mr Blair’s remarks have failed to satisfy many Labour MPs, and will not end the pre-Labour conference speculation. He has said he will not say more now. But he may be forced to do so. The transition looks anything but stable and orderly.

    A nudge and a wink is not enough, Prime Minister, Ts, 2.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2339428,00.html

Blair delay could provoke leadership challenge

· Mainstream MPs set to join 'usual suspects'
· PM believes naming date would cause paralysis

Saturday September 2, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward and David Hencke

Tony Blair's decision to rule out naming a departure date has quickened calls for him to go and could provoke a challenge to his leadership, rebel MPs warned last night.

The prime minister's call this week for an end to speculation inflamed his critics, amid signs that mainstream MPs are joining the group of leftwingers and disgruntled ex-ministers commonly written off as the "usual suspects" by the Blair camp.

MPs are sounding out colleagues about options which include an attempt to amass the 72 Labour MPs needed to move towards a leadership contest. Other possibilities include a delegation to Mr Blair or to the chief whip Jacqui Smith, or a letter to a newspaper demanding a detailed timetable for his departure.

"I think Blair's miscalculated and there will be consequences," said one influential backbencher. "We have got to think about it for a little while. There are a lot of people talking to each other, a number of ideas as to exactly how we respond, but it won't be left at this."

A leading rebel said he was confident that about 80 MPs would back a leadership challenge although if Mr Blair resisted they would need a vote at party conference before a contest went ahead.

One calculation is that the prime minister should still be given the opportunity to offer "something bankable" by making his plans clear in the next few weeks, at his monthly press conference, or in speeches to the TUC and Labour conference. This could mean the MPs delay acting until parliament returns in October, when a protest is more easily mobilised.

Mr Blair expects to go within the year. But he believes that to name a departure date would cause "paralysis" in Whitehall and offer a gift to the resurgent Tory party. "If he was forced from office that would send a powerful message to the broad New Labour coalition that the Labour party is perhaps not what they thought it was," said one ally.

Supporters of Gordon Brown are exasperated by the licence given to the Blairite former cabinet ministers Stephen Byers and Charles Clarke to raise contentious policy areas. The former deputy chief whip George Mudie, a backbench supporter ofthe chancellor, called on Mr Blair to "name the date and let's move on". He said: "Tony opened Pandora's box when he said he was going. He should never have opened that box. If he's going the last thing he should want do is start a debate on long-term policy."

Expectations within the cabinet that the leadership issue will overshadow events in Manchester will harden as constituency parties receive a draft conference motion, seen by the Guardian, linking Mr Blair's future to his handling of the Lebanon crisis. A motion proposed by Pete Willsman, a member of the party's national executive committee, says that Mr Blair's "dogmatic approach ... makes him impervious to criticism and is the source of his repeated misjudgments".

In a letter sent to every constituency party secretary, Mr Willsman warns: "The disastrous UK policy of following the US has contributed to the latest tragedy in the Middle East ... the Labour movement has been demanding that this policy must be ended. Unfortunately Tony Blair has made it clear that he is not prepared to do this. The only way to change the policy is to elect a new leader."

The motion will be debated only if it gets through the conference arrangements committee, where the leadership is expected to lean on them to veto it. But supporters believe it has a fighting chance.

Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, says in a GMTV interview tomorrow that a new leader is needed to "unite our party again, get the public behind us again for what will be a radical forth term".

Agitation is spreading to new MPs and those in marginal seats in the south. Sarah McCarthy-Fry, elected last year to Portsmouth North, said: "I think we've reached a point where not saying anything is going to be more damaging. We are stuck in this quagmire and we cannot get out of it because everything swings back to the leadership."

Another new MP, Lyn Brown from West Ham, said: "He needs to quell speculation. This is just ridiculous."

But former cabinet ministers David Blunkett and Lord Cunningham told the BBC that he had to be given some leeway. "I think he should do it in his own time, without pressure, in a reasonable fashion, ensuring that there is a long period for the handover," Mr Blunkett said.

    Blair delay could provoke leadership challenge, G, 2.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1863392,00.html

5.30pm

Backbench mood darkens over Blair's departure

Friday September 1, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Half-a-dozen Labour MPs today publicly called on Tony Blair to announce a date for his retirement, in a sign of growing backbench discontent within the party ahead of the conference season.

The attacks followed an interview this morning, in which he promised to "get on with the job" rather than announce a date for his departure.

The moves also come after the Guardian reported on Wednesday that backbench MPs were discussing whether to use the Labour conference to force him to set a timetable for his retirement.

Former cabinet minister Andrew Smith, a former colleague of Gordon Brown's at the Treasury, said the leadership issue needed to be "sorted out".

"I am disappointed that the Prime Minister has chosen to put it in these terms and that he won't say more and I think there will be widespread concern amongst the public as well as amongst Labour party members," he told the BBC Today programme.

"I would have thought it's clear to everyone that the debilitating uncertainty over the leadership can't go on - it's bad for the country, bad for the Government, bad for the Labour Party, and ultimately bad for Tony Blair himself."

The remarks were echoed by Caerphilly MP, Wayne David, who said Mr Blair should step down before local elections in Scotland and Wales, due next year, and added that his views were "mainstream" and "shared by the great majority of my colleagues".

"There is a need for renewal of the party and the Government now," he said. "And for that to happen, the speculation and future about the Prime Minister's future must be brought to an end. That is why we need clarity about the Prime Minister's position."

There were similar comments from Julie Morgan - the wife of Welsh first minister Rhodri Morgan - and from backbenchers Lyn Brown, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, and George Mudie.

Mr Mudie said that the issue could swell into a full-blown rebellion during September's party conference, if it is not addressed by Number 10.

"If he continues to avoid the issue then I have to say that conference is the natural place for the party to say to the leader 'What on earth is going on?'," he told the BBC.

"It has to be avoided and will be very embarrassing if we are running into the conference in the present direction.

"Tony has got to show some leadership, recognise he has got his place in history and take the orderly steps to hand over."

There was also criticism from Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who said that there needed to be a change of leadership so that a new Labour leader was able to tackle Conservative leader David Cameron head-on.

The latest Guardian/ICM poll found the Conservatives running nine points ahead of Labour, with the party showing its lowest level of support since before the 1987 election.

"We need a Prime Minister to understand that we're being damaged; we need a Prime Minister to lay down a timetable so that we understand who that person, be it a man or woman, is likely to be and so we understand the policies, so we can reunite the party, reunite the country and enthuse the voters to start to vote for Labour," Mr Woodley said.

    Backbench mood darkens over Blair's departure, G, 1.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1863214,00.html

Blair: I want another 12 months

PM will quit by summer next year but rules out announcement at conference

Friday September 1, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Tony Blair said yesterday he would not give a timetable for his departure before or during the Labour party conference this month, although friends indicated that he will stand down next year.

His refusal to clarify his intentions in public angered leftwing Labour MPs, who said the confusion could not go on. However, one source said: "He is trying not to convey the impression that he is in a mood of defiance."

The prime minister's current thinking is that he will stand down next summer. An announcement is most likely to come before the May elections for the Welsh assembly and Scottish parliament, which are expected to see heavy Labour losses. Mr Blair is in a quandary, believing that he would lose his remaining authority if he were to set an explicit date now.

Yesterday he tried to ride out the demands for an early timetable, saying: "If people want stable and orderly change, they should not keep obsessing about it in the meantime, but instead get on with the business of government."

He added: "I really think it is absurd for the people who say we must stop this continual speculation about the leadership to continue to speculate about it. I'm not the one who keeps raising this issue. I have done what no other prime minister has done before me. I've said I'm not going to go on and on and on, and said I'll leave ample time for my successor.

Asked in the interview in the Times to state categorically whether he would say more to defuse the issue before or at the conference, he said that he had said all he could. "I think, if it is speculation that people are worried about, there is a simple answer - stop speculating. If what they are really worried about is timing, I think most of you can look at at what I have said and draw conclusions about that," he said.

Mr Blair has previously said in public that he will stand down early enough to give his successor "ample time" to succeed him, but backbench MPs are agitating for a clear timetable - or at least an explicit statement that this year's party conference will be his last. Private briefings that it is his intention to stand down next year may not satisfy them.

The 32-strong Welsh group of Labour MPs is to meet in special session on September to discuss the state of the party and the leadership. The meeting was called in response to the Middle East crisis, but Welsh MPs said yesterday the discussion would now centre on the damage to Labour if Mr Blair sought to stay and lead the party into the Welsh elections.

The secretary of the leftwing Compass Group of MPs, Jon Trickett, said: "There is chaos and confusion at the top. We have to have clarity about when he is going to go. We cannot go on as we are."

Mr Blair still wants to use his remaining period of power to lead a debate on the direction of the party, and the agenda facing Britain in the next decade, but his hopes that the agitation on the backbenches would die away, opening the space for such a discussion, have so far been quashed. He fears that the political running is being made by the party's left. He said most of those agitating for him to stand down are seeking not a change of leader, but instead of political direction.

A group of former Blairite ministers is expected to sign a joint letter next week backing Mr Blair's call for a debate on the party's future. The move is designed to supplement interventions by figures such as Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn.

    Blair: I want another 12 months, G, 1.9.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1862789,00.html

We can clamp down on antisocial children before birth, says Blair

· Intervention 'could prevent later problems'
· Package of proposals courts controversy

Friday September 1, 2006
Guardian
Lee Glendinning

Tony Blair has said it is possible to identify problem children who could grow up to be a potential "menace to society" even before they are born.

Setting out plans for state intervention to prevent babies born into high-risk families becoming problem teenagers of the future, the prime minister said teenage mothers could be forced to accept state help before giving birth, as part of a clampdown on antisocial behaviour.

Mr Blair defended the need for state intervention and said action could even be taken "pre-birth" if necessary as families with drug and alcohol problems were being identified too late.

"If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children that are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional, and the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves," he told BBC News. There could be sanctions for parents who refused to take advice, he added.

Mr Blair's uncompromising remarks in a BBC interview come after the Guardian revealed earlier this week full details of his wide-ranging plans for tackling social exclusion.

The package, worked out at a Chequers summit meeting with ministers and leading agencies such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Turning Point, covers ideas on children in care, teenage mothers and mentally ill people on benefit - those who have been "difficult to reach" in previous government programmes.

The prime minister will set out his plans in a speech next Tuesday, but it his trenchant language in his first broadcast interview since returning from holiday which is certain to stir controversy.

He admitted many people might be uneasy with the idea of intervening in people's family life but said there was no point "pussy-footing".

Official figures released in February showed the conception rate for girls aged 13-15 was 7.5 per 1,000 in 2004. Ministers are looking at new strategies to curb teenage pregnancy and compulsory 12-week programmes for vulnerable young parents to improve their skills bringing up children.

The leader of the government's Respect taskforce, Louise Casey, is a strong advocate of parenting classes for people whose children behave antisocially.

The radical proposal is believed to have come out of that meeting at Chequers and a government policy paper on the issue is due to be published soon.

While help had to be offered, Mr Blair said, "some sense of discipline and responsibility" had to be brought to bear. "You either steer clear and say that's not for government to get into, in which case you don't deal with the problem. Or, and this is really what I'm saying, I think we need to deal with these particular issues and we actually do intervene and we intervene at a very early stage.

"If you've got someone who is a teenage mum, not married, not in a stable relationship ... here is the support we are prepared to offer you, but we do need to keep a careful watch on you and how your situation is developing because all the indicators are that your type of situation can lead to problems in the future," he said.

The Conservatives have objected to this course, saying the government should not try to run people's lives.

Conservative policy director Oliver Letwin said: "The answer is not more state intervention. It is to encourage the social enterprise, the voluntary sector, community groups, to help people without trying to run their lives for them."

One thinktank suggested it was almost "genetic determinism" to suggest children could turn out to be troublemakers before they were born.

Norman Lamb, chief of staff to Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said: "Empty threats to pregnant mothers will do little to restore confidence in a government that has failed to tackle poverty, crime and social exclusion for the last nine years."

    We can clamp down on antisocial children before birth, says Blair, G, 1.9.2006,
    http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1862706,00.html