Relations between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's camp are described by both sides as dangerous, with only a few figures at the heart of the dispute still hopeful that the crisis can be resolved without the blood-letting that ended Thatcherism and left the Tory party unelectable for a decade.
At dispute is whether a private assurance on a handover date is any longer sufficient.
Both men were on the brink of open warfare on Sunday. Brown in two TV appearances and a charity walkabout gave the impression of a man on the campaign trail waiting impatiently for the prime minister to call it a day. He stuck to his mantra of wanting a stable and orderly transition, but he did so in the knowledge that forces are now organizing on the backbenches, on the party national executive and in the unions to prise Blair from office.
But he discreetly encouraged those forces, saying it was for others in the party to pursue the transition question. His aim remains to build sufficient political pressure that Blair relents, so the crisis does not start going into formal party machinery, the publication of letters or let alone a backbench stalking horse challenge.
"We have got to avoid that at almost all costs," one senior Brownite said.
Blair, by contrast, sent out his toughest allies, John Reid and Stephen Byers, to accuse those rallying to throw him out of staging a coup.
Today Blair will hope to see off his backbench critics at a meeting of the parliamentary party, but the key Brownites insisted a stage-managed show of support for the prime minister in committee room 15 at Westminster will not mean the crisis has passed like some summer storm. They insist the political weather has changed for good.
Brown remains in the position of plausible deniability in that he genuinely does not want an ugly end, let alone a coup, but instead a public date for the prime minister's departure. Private assurances previously given, and broken, will not do.
In his interviews he appeared to distance himself from those members of parliament (MPs) and organizations such as Compass drafting letters calling for Blair to quit, saying the party did not need outriders, or else the moderate centre would collapse.
In the battle for center ground opinion in the party, let alone the country, Brown knows he has to be careful about the company he keeps. His stance would be shot full of contradictions if he rode to power on the back of old Labour support such as that provided by Frank Dobson. Brown's aides instead point to signs that centrist figures in the party want the certainty of a departure date, including Nick Raynsford, Alan Whitehead, Lady Morris and John Denham.
The Compass Group, led by Neal Lawson, also insist they are modernizers.
"The demand from mainstream MPs for a sensible leadership election timetable is at last unlocking a much-needed debate about Labour's future. Blairite outriders are stuck in the groove of an old reform agenda based on the further marketization of our schools and hospitals. Tensions at the top are ultimately about different political visions," Lawson said on Sunday.
The Brownites also claim that only the Blairite ultras could be wheeled out on Sunday to defend the prime minister, suggesting his critical power base -- the Cabinet -- is starting to erode. The key loyalists are Reid, Hazel Blears, Tessa Jowell, Lord Falconer and Hilary Armstrong, but Brownites claimed the absence of Peter Hain, David Miliband and even Patricia Hewitt from the TV studios may be a sign of Blair's growing isolation.
In the Blairite camp there is a seething anger at what they regard as a long-planned move by Brown to use the elections to oust his rival.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS