Milburn is the new target as rift broadens

Simmering rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown left new question marks today over who will run Labour's next election campaign.

As a new book laid bare the tensions between the pair in extraordinary detail, allies of the Chancellor were orchestrating a savage backlash against Alan Milburn, the man said to be Mr Blair's favoured successor.

Ministers sympathetic to the Chancellor questioned whether Mr Milburn had the intellectual ability or the experience to run the election.

One senior minister said: "He is frankly not in the same league as Blair or Brown intellectually. It is hard to see how he can be in charge when the main campaign begins. The next election may be very difficult indeed. We cannot afford to be complacent or take chances."

The prospect appeared to be possible of Mr Milburn being left high and dry because of the civil war between Labour's most senior figures. Labour officials were unable

to say who would chair the election strategy committee once the campaign begins.

Mr Blair is the nominal chairman of the group, which includes John Prescott, Mr Brown and Mr Milburn but the Chancellor took his place in the last two elections when the Prime Minister hit the campaign trail.

Even a source close to Mr Milburn, who expected to be in overall charge when he returned to the Cabinet in the recent reshuffle, admitted: "We will just have to wait and see. It has not been decided."

There were contradictory signals from all three men over the weekend. In an interview - which was not cleared first with Mr Blair's office, to the irritation of his aides - Mr Brown tetchily said his election role had been taken away from him.

However, in a BBC interview, Mr Blair said the Chancellor would "carry on in the next election what he did in the last two elections".

In other signs of tension, aides to Mr Blair said that they had not been shown Mr Brown's draft speech to be delivered to the conference floor today.

There were reports that the pair were barely on speaking terms because of Mr Brown's

fury that he had been publicly sidelined in the reshuffle and that Mr Blair apparently reneged on a pledge to stand down this year and let him take over as Prime Minister.

New evidence of the stormy and strained relationship between the pair emerged in a biography of Mr Brown by investigative journalist Tom Bower.

It reveals that time and again Mr Blair was outmanoeuvred over policies and even Cabinet appointments by the Chancellor and that their relationship repeatedly breaks down in government.

Astonishingly, the book discloses, Mr Blair did not contact his Chancellor for four days after Labour's 2001 general election. When he did it was to ask coolly: "I assume you want to carry on as Chancellor."

The book describes how their relationship eroded as Mr Brown amassed ever greater authority over other Whitehall departments, to the point where Mr Blair would routinely ask ministers "have you cleared this with Gordon" before approving their policies.

Cherie Blair was said to have confronted the Chancellor over his lack of deference for her husband, saying: "For God's sake, stop treating Tony with such rudeness. There's more to life than all this."

Mrs Blair then banned the Chancellor from seeing her husband in the Blair family's private quarters. She in turn was said to be regarded as "an oddball" by Mr Brown's wife Sarah.

The Prime Minister was overruled by Mr Brown when he tried to appoint Frank Field as Secretary of State for Welfare. Mr Brown insisted the post go to Harriet Harman instead. Trying to persuade Mr Field to accept a role as her deputy instead of the top job, Mr Blair wearily urged: "There's so much blood on the carpet. Do you want more?"

The book also reveals how the Chancellor was infuriated by Mr Blair's surprise statement in February 2001 that the five economic tests for entry into the single currency would be assessed within the first two years of the next parliament. Mr Brown said a referendum on the euro would weaken the government.

Mr Blair is alleged to have confided in Robin Cook: "I've no idea what government is proposing. Even Treasury officials can't find out what's going on over the economic assessment, let alone us at 10 Downing Street."

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