Blair’s doubts over Brown as a Labour leader revealed by Alastair Campbell
May 29th, 2010 - 7:54 pm ICT by ANI
London, May 29(ANI): Alastair Campbell, Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, has revealed that Blair had in the past questioned whether Gordon Brown “had it in him” to become a Labour leader.
According to the Telegraph, the highly revealing details, which Campbell omitted from a condensed version of his memoirs in 2007, are contained in the first volume of his unexpurgated diaries, which will be published next week.
In the book, Campbell recalls a conversation with Blair in December 1995 in which Blair confided his innermost thoughts about his future Chancellor.
Blair decided his colleague had missed his chance to lead the party when he failed to challenge John Smith for the job in 1992, according to the former Downing Street communications chief.
“I can remember the moment when in the back of my mind I felt he [Brown] would not be leader,” Campbell quoted Blair, as saying.
“It was after the general election when Neil [Kinnock] had stepped down and GB would not even contemplate challenging John Smith. I felt he could have won … and something in me began to wonder if he really had it in him; whether maybe it was something he preferred to want, rather than to be,” he added.
Brown, meanwhile, had an entirely different take on Blair’s successful 1994 leadership bid, which lay at the heart of the two men’s volatile relationship. (ANI)
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