Gordon Brown: Prime Minister. Tom Bower

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       FOUR Retreat

      The telephone call soon after 9.30 on the morning of Thursday, 12 May 1994 was shattering. Saul Billingsley, Gordon Brown’s assistant, reported that Murray Elder needed to speak to him very urgently. Brown was in his flat in Great Smith Street as he listened to his childhood friend’s trembling voice. At 9.15, said Elder, John Smith had died after another heart attack. Brown was thunderstruck. His grief was genuine.

      The night before, Brown and Smith had attended a fundraising dinner at the Park Lane Hotel. The party had been jolly. Many rich men, former contributors to the Tories, had pledged their new loyalty to Labour. Success in politics, Smith knew, is the talent to exploit unexpected opportunities. John Smith’s misfortune was Gordon Brown’s chance.

      During those first hours, Brown was not wholly in mourning. Instinctively, he considered his tactics. He had dedicated his life to becoming number one. The prospect of failure was intolerable. Those close friends whom he telephoned noticed that his voice was sombre but not distraught. Nothing, he urged his confidants, should be said or done. The son of the manse understood human suffering and respect for proprieties. Decency demanded delay, if he was to avoid accusations of opportunism. Sue Nye, Ed Balls and Charlie Whelan arrived. Their conversation was short, and they departed. In the era before the widespread use of mobile telephones, communications would be slow.

      Among Gordon Brown’s telephone calls was one to Tony Blair, who had just arrived at Dyce airport in Aberdeen to start a campaign tour. So many words had already been exchanged about John Smith that they got straight down to practicalities. They agreed to meet later that day, after Blair had cut short his journey and returned to London. Brown assumed that Blair would wait until after they had met before making any decisions.

      After eleven o’clock, Peter Mandelson arrived in the flat. Whatever his faults, Mandelson was a serious politician who had dedicated himself to the party’s election success. He was also an astute judge of people’s strengths and weaknesses. Gordon Brown, he noted, did not regard Smith’s death just as a tragedy, but also as an opportunity which he was willing to grasp. There were few words of mourning. Mandelson spoke to Brown only about the succession. The Scotsman was emphatic that he would stand. When Mandelson did not comment, Brown misread his neutrality as support. Shortly afterwards, Nick Brown joined them.

      Sheena McDonald arrived at lunchtime. The three men’s discussions had reached stalemate. Mandelson was endlessly on the telephone, Nick Brown was sitting silently on a chair, while Gordon Brown paced quietly around the room listening to Mandelson’s conversations. McDonald departed, leaving Brown to write an obituary for the next day’s Independent which would be notable for its hyperbole. John Smith, he repeatedly emphasised, was witty and good company. His premature death deprived ‘the country as a whole of something irreplaceable’, because Smith was ‘uniquely equipped … to bind this nation together and to heal the deep wounds of the past fifteen years’. He lamented that Smith had been standing ‘at the brink of his greatest achievement’, victory in the next election. In truth, Brown knew, Smith was singularly ill-equipped for that challenge.

      Sitting in a corner of the untidy living room following the media coverage of Smith’s death in telephone conversations, Charlie Whelan’s temper rose. Commentators were privately predicting that Blair was the favoured candidate for the leadership. More alarming was the early edition of the agenda-setting London Evening Standard. The newspaper’s editor had heard about Smith’s death from a doctor at the London hospital. Charles Reiss, the Standard’s political editor, baldly stated that Blair was the heir apparent in a ‘dream ticket’ with John Prescott as his deputy. Brown, by contrast, was dismissed as the son of John Smith, the new representative of Old Labour. By mid-afternoon, Brown was working behind closed doors in his Millbank office. Outside, Caroline Daniel, a new researcher, sensed an unusually tense atmosphere. Sue Nye was warning everyone not to speak to anyone on Blair’s staff. ‘It could all get heated,’ she said. ‘We need to ensure that everyone can be trusted.’ This warning was odd, because two nights every week Anji Hunter, Blair’s personal assistant, slept at Nye’s home. During those visits they conveniently settled any outstanding differences between the politicians. Towards the end of the afternoon, after speaking with Nick Brown, Gordon Brown agreed that his closest confidants should gather at 6 p.m. in his office.

      The six men who met that evening in Brown’s corner office – Alistair Darling, Martin O’Neill, Doug Henderson, Nick Brown, Tom Clarke and Murray Elder – were all from Scotland and the north-east of England. Their purpose was to discuss how to bring about Brown’s election as the new leader. The mood was businesslike. ‘There’s everything to play for,’ announced Nick Brown. ‘You’ve got an even chance to win.’ Gordon Brown nodded. He acknowledged that Blair was his obvious rival, and did not mention any personal understanding between the two – either an agreement that Blair would stand aside for Brown, or that they would not campaign against each other.

      Doug Henderson disturbed their composure. He had spent the day ‘intelligence gathering’ around Westminster and consulting his constituents. ‘I’ve already spoken to my people in Newcastle,’ he said, ‘and you’re not going to win there.’ He then dropped a bombshell. ‘I just don’t think you can win. You’re behind in the press stakes. We’re half a lap behind. I didn’t need a glass against my wall to hear Mandelson at work today.’ ‘What do you mean?’ asked Brown. ‘His room is next to mine,’ explained Henderson. ‘He’s spent the whole day speaking to his favourites in Fleet Street promoting Blair.’

      Brown’s face fell. He was unsure whether Blair had approved Mandelson’s activities, but Mandelson had for long been contemplating a coup against John Smith. Smith’s death had possibly triggered a prepared plan. Brown never contemplated the possibility that Henderson might have been mistaken. Later, Derek Draper, Mandelson’s assistant, would insist that Mandelson did not brief in Blair’s favour for the first twenty-four hours.

      The short silence was broken by Nick Brown. ‘You’ve got to take him on,’ he said in a pleading tone. ‘You can win, and in any case you can’t trust Blair. If you do a deal, it will be ignored and he’ll welch on it.’ Gordon Brown’s childhood friend Murray Elder, a decent but uncombative man, cautioned him to ‘wait and see’. Impaled more than Brown by fear of failure, Elder believed that the hurt of defeat would be worse than to take a risk. Charlie Whelan did not commit himself, although he would later say that Brown could have won if he had been better prepared.

      Brown became gradually more grim-faced and silent. Someone opened the midday edition of the Evening Standard. A glowing profile of Blair by Sarah Baxter added to the misery in the room. ‘I don’t СКАЧАТЬ