BROWN CLOUD CHRONICLES:

Ex-Blair aide lifts lid on rift with Brown (NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN, 9/12/04, The Scotsman)

AN EXPLOSIVE new account of the feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was published last night, offering a series of extraordinary allegations about the deep rift between the two most powerful men in government.

In newly published memoirs, Blair’s former economics adviser Derek Scott claims that the Chancellor was "obstructive and deceitful" towards the Prime Minister and hid information about economic policy - including the content of an upcoming budget - from him.

In his book Off Whitehall, Scott adds that Blair made a fatal error by ceding control over vast swathes of domestic policy to the Chancellor.

"It soon became known throughout Whitehall that, in some areas at least, the Chancellor could defy the Prime Minister with impunity," Scott writes.

So bad was the relationship that Blair was even deprived an insight into Brown’s 1998 budget, Scott claims.

He alleges that Brown simply rebuffed the premier’s requests for information, saying: "I haven’t made my mind up."

The book reports that Blair was reduced to pleading "Give me a hint, Gordon".

The book will fuel speculation about relations between the government’s two most powerful figures after a week in which Blair’s appointment of fellow-moderniser Alan Milburn as Labour’s campaign supremo - a position Brown has occupied in previous elections - caused further deep ructions.

Well, that explains yesterday's story about Mr. Brown being passed over in favor of Mr. Milburn.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2004 9:07 AM