Blair hints Brown may stay on at Treasury
Tony Blair today gave the strongest hint yet that Gordon Brown will continue as Chancellor if Labour win a third term in government.
Speaking at a press conference on the economy, the Prime Minister was asked about his intentions for the Chancellor if Labour won the general election on May 5.
Praising Mr Brown as “probably the most successful chancellor in 100 years” and lauding his achievements in managing the economy, he said: “We’d be pretty foolish to put that at risk.”
However, he refused to comment further, saying he had “gone further” than any other prime minister would have – and was curt with reporters who tried to make it the focus of the press conference.
He urged reporters to test the Conservatives over their economic plans, and insisted the public would be more interested in such policy matters than in rumours over whether Mr Brown had fallen out with election strategy leader Alan Milburn or vice-versa.
He said the Conservatives’ policies resembled those they put forward in the late 1980s and early 1990s, because they promised cuts in government spending and taxation while also promising increased spending in many areas. “It doesn’t add up. It’s a mess … If you end up with economic plan that is full of holes, you end up with an unstable economy.”
Noting Conservative leader Michael Howard’s recent pledge of an extra £2.7 billion for defence spending, he asked: “How? How do you get that when your Shadow Chancellor is going to freeze the defence budget?”
The claimed £35 billion the Conservatives would ‘cut’ from public spending was not a Labour allegation but Conservative policy, Mr Blair added.
Labour’s spending programmes were thoroughly tested, he said, adding: “The taxation we have now is sufficient to pay for the forward plans.”
