Blair rejects leadership deal claims
Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected claims carried in a new book that he had backtracked on several pledges to hand Gordon Brown the Labour premiership.
Mr Blair said he had answered the claims in the past and it that it was not possible to make deals over senior government positions.
“You don’t do deals over jobs like this”, he told BBC One’s Breakfast with Frost.
The new reports of a rift between the Prime Minister and Chancellor were printed in Sunday Telegraph in a serialised version of In Brown’s Britain by journalist Robert Peston.
According to the book, Mr Blair promised to stand down in a second term of office to fulfil a pledge made between the men at the Granita restaurant prior to Labour’s landslide 1997 election win.
But, it is claimed Mr Blair reneged on the pledge and announced his intention to fight the next general election and serve a full third term of office – without consulting with his Chancellor.
Mr Blair, however, said he had dealt with the claims ‘six months ago’ and that both he and Mr Brown were concentrating on “the issues that concern the country”.
“When you get to the top in politics what happens is you get a huge swell around you and all sorts of people make all sorts of claims and counter-claims”, he said.
He did though admit to a “sense of frustration” about the allegations which he said had been made “countless times” in the past.
The latest claims about the Blair/Brown relationship come after a week in which critics claim both men have been vying to outdo one another in their response to tsunami disaster by holding simultaneous news conferences.
But Mr Blair said he had discussed the claims with the Chancellor and both had written them off them as a “load of nonsense”.
The extracts come as The Sunday Times insists Mr Blair is seeking to upstage Mr Brown by taking over a key session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which had been promised to Mr Brown.
Mr Blair is set to join Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and South African president Thabo Mbeki later this month.
Meanwhile, The Sunday Telegraph argues Mr Blair will radically reorder his cabinet if he wins the next election, implying Mr Brown’s days are numbered in his current job.
On Thursday, Mr Blair said Mr Brown was a “superb” chancellor but declined to confirm whether he would serve in office after the election.
On Tuesday, Mr Brown, Mr Prescott and Mr Milburn – the man brought back into cabinet to orchestrate Labour’s election campaign, to the apparent chagrin of Mr Brown – will launch the belated nationwide mailshot campaign – held back out of respect for the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.
