BRITAIN: UK chancellor Gordon Brown yesterday pressed the prime minister to give assurances to senior party colleagues on the date of his departure and the process of transition.
The chancellor believes he has received worthless private assurances from the prime minister before and wants flesh on Tony Blair's promise to give his successor "ample time" to take over and set his distinctive agenda. Mr Blair gave that assurance under backbench pressure at a meeting with Labour MPs on Monday.
In an interview with GMTV yesterday Mr Brown repeatedly insisted that Mr Blair had said he would talk to senior colleagues about the transition. No 10 regards this demand for a private pledge to senior party colleagues as unreasonable and unworkable.
Mr Brown said in a carefully worded warning: "Tony has said he is going to do it in a stable and orderly way. That means he is going to be talking not just to me, but to senior colleagues about it. Remember, when Mrs Thatcher left, it was unstable, it was disorderly and it was undignified."
He also said: "There are problems that have got to be sorted out and they have got to be sorted out quickly." His remarks were seen in Downing Street as a coded warning that Mr Blair could yet be thrown out like Lady Thatcher unless he agrees to a private commitment to stand down on a specific date, a commitment from which he will be unable to escape later. Asked if Mr Blair had given him a firm date for the handover, Mr Brown replied: "No, and I think that is what he is going to do is to talk to senior colleagues about it."
Many MPs thought Mr Blair had given ground on Monday by promising that he will give Mr Brown ample time to succeed him. In discussions in recent weeks he has made similar promises to Mr Brown privately, as well as vowing not to support anyone against him for the leadership.
Mr Blair's closest aides were admitting yesterday that he will probably now have to go in the summer of 2007 or early 2008 at the latest. But these semi-public assurances are treated with suspicion by the Brownites. They want the assurances on the handover to be passed to some senior cabinet members, and possibly officials or senior members of Labour's national executive.
The chancellor is not seeking a public timetable but one to which Mr Blair can be held to account. An increasingly emboldened chancellor also mapped out the issues he wants to address most urgently in the face of Labour's slumping poll rating. "We are about propriety, we are about security and law and order and we are about giving people the best public services," he said.
Mr Brown is determined as part of an orderly succession to reach an agreement on what issues he will be responsible for and take the initiative on, and the issues that Mr Blair should be allowed to complete. He also wants assurances that he will be fully consulted on key appointments and policy that might impact on his leadership. He feels last week's reshuffle was provocative by promoting Blairites, especially Hazel Blears as Labour party chair. There is another reason for Mr Brown's anger.
His team has been exercised by letters from Mr Blair to cabinet ministers. The letters are "designed to identify the key challenges for departments and how they propose to deliver against these". But the letter that most concerned the Brownites was one sent on Friday from Mr Blair to Ms Blears. In what Mr Brown's supporters regard as provocative language, it set out how the party must be organised by 2009-10. Mr Brown's team believes the organisation of the party machine must be his preserve on the grounds that he will take it into the next election.