Mygripe TONY Blair has lashed his successor in his memoirs, saying Gordon Brown’s reign as prime minister was “a disaster” that was “never going to work”.
But Blair has also admitted he lied to prevent the collapse of the Northern Ireland peace process, saying he took “horrendous” chances and stretched the truth “past breaking point” as he dealt with deadlocked unionists and republicans.
Blair held his tongue during Brown’s three years in office but has let loose on their years of bitter rivalry in his memoirs, entitled “A Journey”, released today.
In them he writes that Brown had “zero” emotional intelligence, was “maddening”, “difficult” and wore him down with “relentless personal pressure”.
The centre-left Labour Party won three straight general elections under Blair but lost power in May at the first under Brown, who had been finance minister throughout Blair’s decade in office from 1997.
Their close relationship descended into bitter infighting as Brown chased the top job. While acknowledging Brown’s strengths, his succession was “unwise because it was never going to work,” Blair wrote. Brown lacked the political instinct “at the human gut level”, Blair said.
“Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero.” “It is easy to say now, in the light of his tenure as prime minister, that I should have stopped it; at the time that would have been well nigh impossible,” Blair wrote.
He said his party has lost power through abandoning his “New Labour” centrist, modernising approach – comments that will resonate deeply in the party on the very day it begins voting to choose a new leader.
The party lost the May election because “it stopped being New Labour”. Unless Brown defined himself thus, his premiership “was going to be a disaster. I knew it.”
Labour’s 13 straight years in power, their best-ever run, could have “gone on longer, had it not abandoned New Labour.”
The fresh focus on the battles between Blair and Brown are likely to reopen old wounds in the party, with the leadership race developing into a battle between the brothers David and Ed Miliband. Mygripe
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