John Kampfner :: author, broadcaster & commentator

Final Act Looms for Labour's Ego Show
Daily Express, 10th January 2005

Some things don't change. Parliament returns after its holiday break with the world in turmoil. The Prime Minister will today address MPs about his (belated) response to the Asian tsunami disaster that has killed hundreds of thousands, including the largest death of Britons since World War Two. At the same time Palestinians have been going to the polls for elections that may be pivotal for the Middle East.

And yet what is Britain's political world talking about? The never-ending soap opera between messrs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The same applied last September when, with Iraq in an increasingly disastrous state and the fears of terrorism increasing, the only issue in town seemed to be the PM's snub to his Chancellor by appointing Alan Milburn to head the election campaign.

Of course our little local difficulties pale into insignificance compared to the big global challenges. Still, the question "who governs Britain?" does matter. It is not a journalistic confection. It is real.

For the best part of a decade the feud between Labour's two top politicians seemed an intriguing distraction, but it didn't really impact on the way we are governed. For the last six months it has taken on an altogether different character.

The latest outbreak of animosity comes at the end of a week when Blair and Brown competed with each other to sound more compassionate about Africa and the developing world, to the extent that they had to share television air time on Thursday with rival appearances. The feuding has culminated in an authoritative book by journalist Robert Peston in which he sets out in lurid detail the extent to which Brown feels Blair has deceived him. It is a startling story, one that has yet to be convincingly denied by the Prime Minister or any of those around him.

If you go back to their original deal in 1994, Blair has promised Brown that he would stand down not just once but three times. Peston's book reveals the number of meetings the two men had last year in which Blair admitted he would never recover from the Iraq war. How Brown must now regret his advice to his nominal boss not to pre-announce his resignation, for fear of destabilising the Labour party. By the summer Blair's friends had persuaded him to go back on his word and stick around. From that point it was meltdown.

Several ministers told me yesterday how aggrieved they feel that the two men cannot at least agree a truce. They do not hide the fact that it is paralysing good government. Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, put it well when he said: "We have Britain's two most important politicians squabbling like schoolboys. It is the politics of the playground. If the government was a company, with the chairman and chief executive at war with each other, the shareholders would sack them."

Sure, the two men will respond to the latest bout with ostentatious declarations of peace. But this will not fool anyone. They might, just, suspend hostilities for a few months until the general election, but after that it seems virtually certain that something, or someone, will have to give. But who?

The answer to that will depend on the size of the Labour victory (and almost nobody expects anything other than a Labour victory). A large majority will give Blair the ammunition he needs to offer Brown the job he couldn't possibly accept, such as the Foreign Office, whether beefed up or not. A small majority will make Blair vulnerable to a leadership bid, possibly through the use of a stalking horse.

It is not easy under Labour's constitution to do that, but Brown will truly have nothing to lose. Blair repeated yesterday his intention to serve out as much of another parliamentary term as he can in what he proclaimed would be an "unremittingly New Labour" third term. That could leave Brown biting his nails until 2010 - in other words 16 years since he first agreed to stand aside for Blair.

There are, for sure, certain policy differences between them. Brown, the man with real roots in the Labour party, is wary of Blair's intention to increase the role of market forces in public services like health and education. Brown's priorities are different, focusing much more on poverty alleviation than Blair. But there always has been ample scope for compromise between the two. Not now.

Politics goes hand in hand with animosities, rivalries and feuds. All governments have had them, Harold Macmillan's, Ted Heath's, Harold Wilson's, Margaret Thatcher's and famously John Major's. What makes this one different is that it has gone on for so long. The drama has one more act to run before its climax.

This article first appeared in the Daily Express and may not be reproduced without permission.