BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown’s leadership has suffered a blow following apparent criticism from one of his key allies, Lord Peter Mandelson about the handling of the early stages of the Labour Party’s battle for re-election.
So far, Mr Brown’s strategy – with extra taxes on middle and higher earners and curbs on bankers’ bonuses, along with an attack on Conservative leader, David Cameron’s wealthy background – has been seen as an attempt to shore up Labour’s traditional support.
However, Mr Mandelson, now of one of the most powerful people around Mr Brown, yesterday questioned the so-called “core vote strategy”, shortly before he appeared alongside the prime minister at a public engagement.
Mr Mandelson said: “It certainly does not represent Labour thinking or our strategy. Of course, we want to retain the vote that is most loyal to us but we are not going to win the election on that basis.
“We have to reach out to the whole of the New Labour coalition that brought us support in the last three elections and without which we will not win the next,” he told the London Evening Standard.
His move follows differences that have emerged once more between the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, over the management of the UK’s burgeoning national debt.
On Monday, he argued that any extra taxes that come from stronger-than-expected growth next year – should that happen – must be spent to reduce borrowing and not increase public spending, though Mr Brown had said the opposite the previous day.
Divisions have been growing within Labour, particularly in the wake of last month’s pre-budget report from the chancellor, which was seen as having been heavily influenced by Mr Brown.
Schools secretary Ed Balls, a combative and close ally of the prime minister, has pushed strongly for extra public spending, along with a campaign targeted at Labour’s heartland constituencies.
However, Lord Mandelson, now business secretary, openly disagreed yesterday: “We are not a sectarian party. We are not a heartlands-only party. We are not going to win the election on that basis.” Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg insisted that he would not do any “backroom deals” or “under-the-counter understandings” with either Labour, or the Conservatives.
“David Cameron and Gordon Brown are ostentatiously flirting with Liberal Democrat voters, clumsily trying to woo them — and by implication me and my fellow Liberal Democrat MPs,” he said. “If voters decide that no party deserves an overall majority, then self-evidently the party with the strongest mandate will have a moral right to be the first to seek to govern on its own or, if it chooses, to seek alliances with other parties,” Mr Clegg wrote in the Times.
Regardless of “the post-election arithmetic or whatever power we are granted”, Mr Clegg said the Liberal Democrats would insist that the first £10,000 of earnings should be tax-free to help the lower-paid. The Liberals also want extra spending on education, and electoral reform – including a right for constituents to sack their MP during a parliamentary term.