Reverse Midas Touch
The Telegraph newspaper has a great scoop today which lays bare the feud that undermined - and ultimately finished off - the last Labour government.
Here are a few extracts from the piece which go into enormous detail about the plan to replace Tony Blair with Gordon Brown - by any means it seems - other than the obvious one of having a leadership contest.
Labour coup: Gordon Brown's cabal hatched plot in midst of terrorist crisis
"On July 21, 2005, Tony Blair and his most senior government figures were locked in the struggle to stop a second wave of Islamic terrorists bombing London.
But elsewhere in Westminster, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and others were plotting the latest stage of their plan to remove the Prime Minister from office.
A document dated to that day discloses that key tasks for the intensifying campaign had been devised by a small group of ultra-loyalists around Gordon Brown, underlining the team’s obsessive focus on their political interests while others were more concerned with the threat of terrorism.
The plotting was to reach a frenetic pace in the following months, leading Mr Blair to begin 2006 with a memo to his inner circle warning that they were locked in a “poker game for very high stakes” over the future of Labour.
Mr Blair became increasingly aware of the concerted plot to move Mr Brown into his office, months after Labour’s historic third election win.
In February 2006, the two camps were locked in secret talks to agree on a transition deal during which Mr Blair offered to step down in 2007 if Mr Brown backed his reform programme. The extraordinary letters sent between the two men as they attempted to agree on a plan are today disclosed and published in full by this newspaper.
The Brownite plot which led to the deal, codenamed Project Volvo because of its aim to change Mr Brown’s steady but dour reputation, was launched within weeks of the 2005 general election as the Chancellor brooded over the popularity of his next-door neighbour.
On his personal computer, Mr Brown had prepared a document called “father” that appeared to set out his plans, which he was ready to put into action.
In a memo sent to Mr Balls in mid-July, he suggested starting a secretive push at the Labour conference to talk about “renewing” and “reforming” the party, which would quickly become shorthand for getting rid of Mr Blair. Mr Balls was to give an interview on the eve of conference calling for renewal, which would spark the “debate”.
On July 19, a detailed list of who was responsible for the various parts of the leadership challenge was drawn up in a meeting. Two days later, the Brownite plotters were drawing up the “new government storyline” and the “first 100 days policy plan”.
Ed Miliband, who was later to become Labour leader, was set the task of developing the new policies which would apparently leave the public wanting to “bring on Gordon Brown”.
Throughout the autumn of 2005, Mr Brown sent rambling memos to Mr Balls and the other members of the “inner group” of plotters setting out his thoughts of where Mr Blair went wrong.
He warned Mr Balls: “If we are to renew Labour, we will have to be as rigorous and brutal as we were in the creation of new Labour.”
Another document from Mr Brown said: “Politics is about shaping the debate as much as winning the debate itself … Recent weeks have shown how far we have moved backwards since the election … The press now write as if Blair is the only person who could ever win Labour any election."
Which turned out to be true of course.
Because shortly after he became Prime Minister - Gordon Brown developed a kind of 'reverse Midas touch'.
Where everything he touched became toxic - and turned to dust instead of gold.
I am currently reading 'The New Machiavelli - an account of Jonathan Powell's years at 10 Downing Street as Tonny Blair's chief-of-staff.
I'm sure he'll have some interesting insights into the TBGBs - as the feud between the two men became know.
Here are a few extracts from the piece which go into enormous detail about the plan to replace Tony Blair with Gordon Brown - by any means it seems - other than the obvious one of having a leadership contest.
Labour coup: Gordon Brown's cabal hatched plot in midst of terrorist crisis
"On July 21, 2005, Tony Blair and his most senior government figures were locked in the struggle to stop a second wave of Islamic terrorists bombing London.
But elsewhere in Westminster, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and others were plotting the latest stage of their plan to remove the Prime Minister from office.
A document dated to that day discloses that key tasks for the intensifying campaign had been devised by a small group of ultra-loyalists around Gordon Brown, underlining the team’s obsessive focus on their political interests while others were more concerned with the threat of terrorism.
The plotting was to reach a frenetic pace in the following months, leading Mr Blair to begin 2006 with a memo to his inner circle warning that they were locked in a “poker game for very high stakes” over the future of Labour.
Mr Blair became increasingly aware of the concerted plot to move Mr Brown into his office, months after Labour’s historic third election win.
In February 2006, the two camps were locked in secret talks to agree on a transition deal during which Mr Blair offered to step down in 2007 if Mr Brown backed his reform programme. The extraordinary letters sent between the two men as they attempted to agree on a plan are today disclosed and published in full by this newspaper.
The Brownite plot which led to the deal, codenamed Project Volvo because of its aim to change Mr Brown’s steady but dour reputation, was launched within weeks of the 2005 general election as the Chancellor brooded over the popularity of his next-door neighbour.
On his personal computer, Mr Brown had prepared a document called “father” that appeared to set out his plans, which he was ready to put into action.
In a memo sent to Mr Balls in mid-July, he suggested starting a secretive push at the Labour conference to talk about “renewing” and “reforming” the party, which would quickly become shorthand for getting rid of Mr Blair. Mr Balls was to give an interview on the eve of conference calling for renewal, which would spark the “debate”.
On July 19, a detailed list of who was responsible for the various parts of the leadership challenge was drawn up in a meeting. Two days later, the Brownite plotters were drawing up the “new government storyline” and the “first 100 days policy plan”.
Ed Miliband, who was later to become Labour leader, was set the task of developing the new policies which would apparently leave the public wanting to “bring on Gordon Brown”.
Throughout the autumn of 2005, Mr Brown sent rambling memos to Mr Balls and the other members of the “inner group” of plotters setting out his thoughts of where Mr Blair went wrong.
He warned Mr Balls: “If we are to renew Labour, we will have to be as rigorous and brutal as we were in the creation of new Labour.”
Another document from Mr Brown said: “Politics is about shaping the debate as much as winning the debate itself … Recent weeks have shown how far we have moved backwards since the election … The press now write as if Blair is the only person who could ever win Labour any election."
Which turned out to be true of course.
Because shortly after he became Prime Minister - Gordon Brown developed a kind of 'reverse Midas touch'.
Where everything he touched became toxic - and turned to dust instead of gold.
I am currently reading 'The New Machiavelli - an account of Jonathan Powell's years at 10 Downing Street as Tonny Blair's chief-of-staff.
I'm sure he'll have some interesting insights into the TBGBs - as the feud between the two men became know.
