LONDON: The crisis tearing at the heart of British power springs from the long political marriage, sometimes sweet but often stormy, between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Alternately friends and rivals, accomplices and adversaries, the prime minister and his finance minister have been tied together — for better and for worse — over the last 12 years.
Though never confirmed by either man, the pair reportedly sealed a pact at London’s Granita restaurant in 1994 while planning their ascent to power — three years before their Labour Party took the reins of government in a landslide.
Under their 12-point pact, Mr Blair got the prime minister’s job and Mr Brown settled for chancellor of the exchequer — on the provision that Mr Blair eventually hand over the top job within a reasonable period, even as soon as four years later.
Mr Brown, however, reportedly became ever more frustrated as Mr Blair — who has now held the top job in British politics for nine years — continued to postpone the day of reckoning.
Unable to either split or make up ahead of general elections in May last year, the pair put up a united front for the campaign that led Labour to an unprecedented third mandate.
But the victory masked worsening tensions.
After Mr Blair announced in 2004 that he would stay on for a third and final term, Mr Brown reportedly told his political ally: “There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe.”
The pair is thought to have clashed anew on Wednesday during two face-to-face meetings, but this time Mr Brown alone emerged with a smile on his face.
Eight junior ministers and key aides resigned the same day after endorsing a letter protesting Mr Blair’s refusal to set a date for his departure.
Mr Brown has nonetheless said he will support any Blair decision, noting that the two men ‘have worked together for 20 years and done so in difficult times as well as in very good times.
“And we continue to work together because we share a determination, both of us, that we will advance and get down to the business of a Labour government,” he added.
Tony Blair’s words were more ambivalent, especially for those who see this week’s events as orchestrated by Gordon Brown.
“The first thing I’d like to do is to apologize on behalf of the Labour Party for the last week,” he said, adding it “has not been our finest hour.”
Mr Blair had until Thursday only promised to give Mr Brown ‘ample time’ to pave the way for the next general election — to be held no later than 2010 — but it is now clear he will leave office within a year.
From the same generation, Blair and Brown met for the first time in 1983 when both were fresh-faced members of parliament.
Mr Blair was a media-savvy, feel-good politician who portrayed himself as a modern and reform-minded innovator. An Anglican, he is reportedly considering converting to the Catholic faith of his wife, Cherie.
Gordon Brown, son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, has earned a reputation for extraordinary hard work, but appears dour in public.
Mr Brown is rarely without suit and tie, while Mr Blair is at ease being photographed on vacation wearing flower-patterned Bermuda shorts.
The odd couple conceived and achieved the party’s return to power after 18 years in the political wilderness by transforming the left-leaning party into centrist “New Labour,” even if Brown is sometimes described as steeped in Old Labour’s leftist ideals.
As chancellor of the exchequer for nearly 10 years, Brown has turned his economic and financial affairs portfolio into a fiefdom so powerful that he has been able to block Mr Blair’s policy proposals.
One of his first moves was to hand decision-making on central interest rates to the Bank of England, rather than government. Despite Blair’s avowed pro-euro leanings, he also succeeded in keeping Britain out of the euro zone.
Blair once said Brown was probably the best chancellor Britain has had in 100 years.
Brown, true to type, spurned the compliment, stressing instead that he had had the fortune of supervising the economy during the longest period of stable economic growth in 300 years.—AFP
