Tony Blair claimed today that Gordon Brown in effect tried to blackmail him over the cash-for-honours scandal in a clash over pensions reform.
The former prime minister made the revelation in his memoirs, A Journey, which are published today and lay bare divisions at the top of the Labour party, focusing attention on his relationship with a "maddening" Brown.
In comments set to rile current Labour leadership hopefuls, Blair also claims in his book that the Tories will be "at their best" when they are allowed to "get on with it" on policies such as education reform, and at their worst when policy represents "an uneasy compromise between the old Labour instincts of the Lib Dems and the hard decisions the Tories will instinctively want to take".
On the structural deficit, Blair declares that after 2005 Labour was "insufficiently vigorous in limiting or eliminating the potential structural deficit" and warns the future Labour leadership against a blanket attack on the coalition government's deficit reduction plan.
Blair's 718-page book charts his deteriorating relationship with Brown during his years at the helm, despite the fact that their relationship had been "a bit like lovers" prior to his becoming party leader.
He describes "the ugliest meeting we ever had" on 15 March 2006, when the pair met to discuss Adair Turner's pension reforms proposals, on which the two men disagreed.
In a conversation that permanently altered his view of Brown, Blair said that the then-chancellor told him he was considering calling for Labour's national executive committee to carry out an inquiry into the cash-for-honours allegations, but would drop that if Blair backed down over the pension reforms.
The Blair-Brown meeting took place in the run-up to a meeting with the work and pensions secretary, John Hutton, and within days of the cash-for-honours scandal erupting.
Blair refused, and two hours after the pensions meeting took place, the Labour treasurer Jack Dromey, now MP for Birmingham Erdington, made a statement that led to the threatened inquiry.
Recounting the contents of the meeting with Brown that day, which Blair said left him "stunned" at the time, Blair wrote: "He began the conversation not by talking of pensions, but by saying how damaging the loans thing was: that there might have to be an NEC inquiry, and that he might have to call for one. I naturally said that would be incredibly damaging and inflammatory and on no account must he do it."
Blair went on: "The temperature, already well below freezing point, went arctic when he then said: well, it depends on this afternoon's meeting. If I would agree to shelve the Turner proposals, he would not do it. But if I persisted, he would."
He added: "I really don't know for a fact that Gordon put Jack up to it. Gordon denied ever speaking to him. And as I say, I really don't believe he would have wanted the dire consequences that it unleashed. It did the party immense damage."
In an exclusive Guardian interview to coincide with the launch of the book Blair said he came to the view that Brown would be a disaster as prime minister.
He believed his rival's premiership "was never going to work" and the party's election defeat under Brown in May happened because "it stopped being New Labour".
In his autobiography, Blair warns: "The danger for Labour now is that we drift off, or even move decisively off, to the left. If we do, we will lose even bigger next time. We have to buck the historical trend and face up to the reasons for defeat squarely and honestly."
Brown lacked political instinct "at the human gut level", he told the Guardian.
He wrote: "Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero."
As well as the stormy relationship with Brown, the book covers events from throughout Blair's political life, from his election as Labour leader in 1994 and prime minister three years later to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Northern Ireland peace talks, war in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and the struggle against terrorism.
Blair also uses his book to warn the future Labour leadership against a full-scale attack on the coalition government's deficit reduction plan to remain "credible" as a party in its own right".
Although his successor was "absolutely right" to intervene at the outset of the financial crisis to prop up banks and stimulate the economy, Brown committed an "error" in going down the road of deficit spending, heavy regulation, income tax rises for the rich and big-state government, Blair wrote.
As Labour members begin to receive their Labour leadership ballot papers to pick Brown's successor as party leader, Blair warns Labour needs to have a "coherent position on the deficit".
"If Labour simply defaults to a 'Tory cutters, Lib Dem collaborators' mantra, it may well benefit in the short term: however, it will lose any possibility of being chosen as an alternative government," wrote Blair.
In comments set to be warmly received by prime minister, David Cameron, Blair went on: "Instead, it has to stand up for its record in the many areas it can do so, but also explain where the criticism of the 13 years is valid. It should criticise the composition but not the thrust of the Tory deficit reductions. This is incredibly difficult."
On Labour's own part in creating the structural deficit, Blair admitted that the failure under his leadership to embrace the Fundamental Savings Review of 2005-06 was "a much bigger error than I ever thought at the time".
On Labour's future, Blair wrote: "Labour has no option but to be credible in its own right. That means, as I say, having a coherent position on the deficit. It means remaining flexible enough to attack the government from left and from right."
Blair also reveals how David Miliband, the shadow foreign secretary and one of Labour leadership contenders, came to see him in May 2007 to seek his advice on whether he should stand against Brown in the leadership post that Blair was about to leave vacant.
Blair recalls Miliband as being "hesitant" and told him that it wasn't a decision he could make for him, though he believed he could possibly win. "I think you might win, not obviously, but very possibly," Blair told Miliband.
In the event, Miliband decided against it, believing that Brown had the contest "sewn up", says Blair. He personally believed that a contest may have flushed out some of the gaps in Brown's thinking, and could have put "full square" the choice of "New Labour or not".
On Miliband, Blair wrote: "I didn't blame him at all, but I did say he should be prepared in case the issue arose again, sooner than we might think."
Blair says he believes Miliband now has "clear leadership qualities". "Two years later he would be a different calibre of politician, with clear leadership qualities; back then in May 2007, as he sought my advice, he was hesitant and I felt fundamentally uncertain as to whether he wanted it. And this is not a job to be half-hearted about."
Comments in chronological order (Total 29 comments)
Post a comment1 September 2010 10:29AM
Tony Blair claimed today that Gordon Brown in effect tried to blackmail him over the cash-for-honours scandal in a clash over pensions reform.
You can't be blackmailed unless you know you did something wrong. So both Blair and Brown were happy to sell honours as long as they didn't get caught.
2005 ?!?! You knew the mess brown was making yet did nothing. It took the collapse of the countries economy before you spoke up.
Wow, Brown and Blair - a perfect storm of destruction.
1 September 2010 10:34AM
This incident just proves everything Blair has said about Brown. He couldn't win the argument on its merits or get support from other members of Cabinet so instead he made a threat and then got one of his chums - Dromey is Harman's husband and one of Brown's cult - to do what he wanted.
Blair - and many others - said Brown would be a disaster as Labour leader and PM. And they were 100% right.
1 September 2010 10:41AM
Easy to point out differences and divisions. There are also many with the current government. Only difference is that they are not being publically aired.
The team is always greater than the sum of the parts. Labour just need to get the leader elections out of the way and then do some serious bonding to work out where their strengths are.
If there is a united opposition, that is one of the best possible challenges to the current administration.
1 September 2010 10:51AM
I assumed Brown was black mailing Bliar all along & who else?
1 September 2010 10:57AM
Blair deserved the enquiry but Brown's behaviour is breathtaking, willing to ditch reform and policy simply to shaft a colleague. He didn't seem to want the enquiry to get to the truth.
An ogre, Brown's only purpose seems to be the accumulation of power. Why did it take so long for this to come out?
1 September 2010 11:07AM
I seem to recall a time when elder statesmen behaved with some dignity and restraint instead of spilling the dirty details like celebrity exes. Am I hallucinating?
1 September 2010 11:15AM
"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Every Napoleon needs his Snowball....
1 September 2010 11:20AM
Both men are contemptible. They have stuffed the house of lords to the rafters with riff raff in exchange for cash and/or favours - such that the titles have become meaningless. I had respect for hereditary peers but only contempt for the present incumbents.
1 September 2010 11:25AM
Just as a matter of interest, have any of you posters read the book?
I suspect not, as it was only published today, so you're getting one person's view reflected by the dark mirror of the right-wing press.
1 September 2010 11:29AM
TobiasR
Totally agree. They just have to be in the news, particularly Mandelson. For all his faults I suspect Gordon Brown may be above that sort of thing.
sickboy47
Yep. You have a point.
1 September 2010 11:32AM
sickboy47 - surely this is the dark mirror of the leftwing press?
1 September 2010 11:39AM
This just reminds me of football players.
When you're in the same team, you love everyone, your teammate, the canteen lady, the manager, everyone.
When either you or the manager leaves, that's when things start coming out.
No England player felt Steve McClaren could do well in the job. No player spoke out until it was too late and they failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and he got sacked.
The same goes for the 2006 World Cup.
It's all well and good Rio Ferdinand calling it a circus after Fabio Capello takes over, but where was he when the circus came into town?
I guess, in all walks of life, people find it difficult to speak out for fear of persecution.
In Tony Blair's case, if it is true, he should have brought it up. I mean, he was one of the most powerful men in the country at the time, right?
If you're the prince, it is hard to speak out against the king.
He was king though, and he should have put the prince in his place.
1 September 2010 11:40AM
How convenient that this has all come out many years too late to make any difference. And he seems to be using these memoirs to tick off every mistake he made while he was in office while making a big profit in the process. These people are beyond contemptible.
1 September 2010 11:54AM
@BrianN
We also have the delightful sight of people referring to Blair as a liar (Bliar - ha ha ha, don't give up the day job) who'll happily take as gospel something that chimes with their own prejudices.
1 September 2010 12:02PM
@PaulOwen
If by this you mean the Guardian - NO!
1 September 2010 12:20PM
Hmmmmm.....one egomaniac denounces another egomaniac's egomaniacal behaviour as being egocentric...In summary two awful human beings, partnered by at least two more (whelan and mandy), facilitated by a retard deputy PM, screw the country for reasons so base that they dont even involve the petty ideology many of us on the right assumed. Then write books on just how smart they were.
Plain, simple, tossers.
1 September 2010 12:33PM
@TiberiusGracchus
Best description of the Coalition I've heard so far.
1 September 2010 12:38PM
As long as the public continue to elect a party based on how much they personally like their leader we'll continue getting these morally bankrupt, corrupt, selfish and out-of-touch idiots being able to steamroller over our society. Shame on all those who voted for Cameron or Clegg purely because "he seemed much more comfortable in that T.V. debate" or because the Daily [Hate] Mail convinced them that the Tories would do things much better.
1 September 2010 1:14PM
The only reason that this was a serious threat is that there features of the cahs-for-honours scandal which were bad - and no doubt illegal - enough to make a blackmail threat credible. The whole affair still needs to be properly investigated.
1 September 2010 1:29PM
Tony Blair was took morally questionable decisions and is clouded by controversy, just like all great men in History!
Now "great" is neither a synonym for "force of Good" nor "humane"
1 September 2010 2:04PM
So what he's basically saying is that, in his view, Tory policies are right and Labour policies are wrong.
We all knew that he thought that. He spent ten years putting Tory policies into practice. Despite wearing a Labour suit.
More than anyone else Tony Blair is responsible for the mess the UK's in. What a complete and utter piece of shite.
1 September 2010 2:09PM
Well...the truth always comes out in the wash. We'll just have to wait until Brown does his laundry sometime in the future (as he surely will - after he'd done some decent work in another sphere and has a few successes to crow about).
Then we can compare and contrast each other's skid marks.
It seems to me from what Blair has come out with (and like all divorced couples he's getting his revenge in early) that a relationship which should have been working in the common interest was riven not by factionalism but caused by Brown's all consuming desire for power and Blair's weakness in not facing him down.
The irony of all this is that Darling proved a highly astute Chancellor with a straightforward and clear thinking view of what needed to be done - how I wish Blair had turned to him in 2006 and told Brown to bring in the Mishcon's and get it over with.
Neither of them look any good at this moment, but it saddens me that so much good stuff was done by Labour and yet it is being sidelined by people cherry-picking the juicy personality rifts - but then, the press was ever thus. Blair, however, knew he was going to be petulant about Brown (a petulant man in himself) in his book, and quite cynically he has done so.
Still, it'll make a few bob for the British Legion - not altogether a bad thing.
Pete
1 September 2010 2:18PM
isn't blackmail a criminal offence?
1 September 2010 2:43PM
I do agree with you on this,sleepyfingers.
I am sorry that TB did not make known his misgivings about Gordon as PM. His silence at the time has damaged the Labour party.
He says that he felt his position within the party at the time would have made it difficult to air his doubts openly but he really should have tried. When we find that even with such a politically disastrous PM in government ,the Tories could not gain an outright win ( and had their manifesto been honest could well have lost ) we see how wrong it was to let GB just take over.
Let's not forget that TB won 3 elections,the third after his apparently unpopular decision to topple Saddam.
1 September 2010 2:53PM
The Labour party won 3 elections under Tony Blair. Can you remember the opposition there was? No contest. The same when the Tories won elections over and over again for 18 years. There was no real opposition.
TB's master stroke was to make himself a credible candidate for PM by lying through his back teeth about how he would change things; whereas all he did was carry things on the way the Tories had been doing them.
And just when you thought things couldn't get worse than after 30 years of Tory policies, you get Cameron and his lap-dog Clegg going to extremes to beat them in meanness and destruction.
1 September 2010 3:46PM
Blair is a disgrace. He should be thrown out of the Labour party. He's a Tory, and all this just proves it.
1 September 2010 6:15PM
I agree with aaardvark11. There should be no place for Thatcherites in the Labour party,they should all be expelled.
1 September 2010 6:30PM
Interesting to note how Brown's opposition to the Pensions Commission report prevented a better and more equitable settlement for pensioners which together with the 70p rise shows how off course the moral compass really was.
It is clear Brown dismissed pensioners as no longer important to the Labour experiment and preferred to spend the money gerrymandering through spending in the public sector and on benefits to build the future client state.
What a shit
1 September 2010 7:21PM
How do we know that is may be trying to tell the truth this time?