Jonathan Powell: Blair felt physically threatened by Brown

Noa Zrk

I suspect I am not alone in being unsurprised at such a 'revelation'. Witness Mrs Duffy, witness the nation, both ignored and abused by this politburo engine, running on a heavy mixture of 5 star power addiction and concentrated bile.

AndyLeeds

The greatest stain of Blair's judgement wasn't the Iraq War, it was his failure to dismiss Brown. God might forgive him for this but we the British People never will.

TrevorsDen

No wonder the country is in a mess. Brown ran the Treasury to make himself look good in the short term. He did not care that all the grand plans were not affordable.

Daedalus

Phuq me you can't believe it. Unfortunatly you do.

Jez

So the bloke who led us into Kosovo, Ghana, Iraq and Afghanistan 'felt physically threatened' by no other than Gordon Brown?

Not painting a too heroic or rightous picture for this big legacy he's desperate to build.

Sad.

doughboy

Physically threatened by that lumbering sack of whey faced pudgy lard? Blair must be a proper ponce.

Craig Strachan

The more we hear about this nonsense, the more Blair as Prime Minister looks weak, weak, weak for not sacking Brown.

John Goode

Gordon end-to-Boom-n-Bust Brown is the prime example of why we the citizens of Britain need the right to choose our Prime Minister by direct elections

TomTom

"Blair as Prime Minister looks weak, weak, weak"

and Weak and Narcissistic he was. Brown should have been propelled into Outer Darkness - he was a total incompetent and just as weak as Blair. A Nonentity

Fex Urbis

Blair comes across as more of a weak, cowardly twat every time there is a new 'revelation', what a pathetic, vain specimen this ghastly prancing mountebank really is.

paulg

It just goes to show what a little nancy Blair was! Brown got his eye kicked out in a rugger game because he was a: big, lolling, stupid, aggressive clown who could not defend himself at the end of the day.

RKing

The amazing thing is that people will still support this discredited labour party.
How low do their leaders have to go before they say enough is enough?
Both Blair and Brown deserve to be on criminal charges for what they have done to this country.

Occasional Ostrich

Totally off topic, I know, but I presume most of you caught that brilliant photograph of Hillary Clinton and Cherie whatsherface in the Torygraph. Perhaps all that peculiar behaviour from Blair M and Blair F over the years stemmed from a need to believe that, in the long term, either one of them ACTUALLY MATTERS!

lescam

They are both detestable, but at least Blair had manners, was always polite and courteous. Brown was just a thug, rude, nasty, arrogant beyond belief and deluded into thinking himself the great I AM. Thank God they have both gone, especially Brown.

PuppetMaster

Why don't you set up a gossip column section for this kind of article, then you could separate the more important stuff.

Simon Mennie

This could have been lifted straight out of a Mario Puzo novel-Don Gorleone the boss of bosses exhibited all the hallmark traits of a mafiosi-paranoia,monstrous self reinforcing arrogance,lethal hatreds,conscientiously nurtured and vindictively exercised, of any who were perceived to constitute a challenge to his sense of his own infallability and entitlement.Add to this a touch of Downfall-the isolated tenant of the Downing St bunker,his economic miracle disintegrating around him,finally turning on ordinary Labour voters as now no longer worthy of his vision.

If Blair's snake oil charm seduced enough impressionable middle class voters in England to vote Labour,Brown's adherence to the Nulab project brought with it the vital imprimatur of the Scottish Labour establishment and its substantial client base without which Labour cannot rule under present constitutional arrangements.Once dug in at the Treasury and with his bagmen in place Brown was simply unsackable.After all how can you sack the publicly acclaimed co-author of three election victories and the most consistently successful post war chancellor,as Blair never tired of reminding us.

And now the rush of hastily written self serving memoirs dribbling over the public consciousness like poison from an abscess.

Pitiful.

tb

And look at the current leadership of Labour, it's hardly 'refreshed'. Everyone neck deep in Brown's agenda.

Woody

Everytime I see the magnificent Houses of Parliament on TV, I just despair that these two men ever got anywhere near the place, let alone were in government. That goes for their loathsome party as well.

Jez

I would like to vote for Simon Mennie please.

Clear Memories

Why is anybody surprised to read this? The Labour Party is full of bigots, bruisers and bullies. Look at the actions of Prescott- just an ignorant violent pig - doesn't agree with you? Out go the fists (verbal or physical) Brown is the same. Seething with envy and resentment I guess - a common thread that runs through the politics of the left. Watch Millipede, backed by the unions, (exploiters of envy, resentment and malice against others for over 100 years). He'll turn out to be the same - either a bully or a craven moral coward.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. (Churchill)

strapworld

Brown MUST have had something on Blair for him to be so scared of him!

Both detestable characters. Both unhinged and both ruined this country. One ruined its international standing the other economically.

And there are still those that want a Labour government. Keys. Asylum. come to mind!

Nicholas

I do agree with tb that there are too many Brownites in the "new" shadow cabinet. It is led by Brown's former speechwriter so either Ed is capable of astonishing dishonesty or Brownism is going to be continued by other means. If Labour were looking for regeneration this isn't it.

davidk

Yawn.

As PuppetMster suggests: why not set up a gossip column and pile this junk in it. It's just noise.

anne allan

What hold does Brown have over Blair? The more you think about it, the more bizarre their whole relationship appears. As the years pass, Blair looks more and more like Golum; something is eating away at him.
Is this information sealed away for 70 years like the Kelly reports?

David Ossitt

PuppetMaster

“Why don't you set up a gossip column section for this kind of article, then you could separate the more important stuff.”

They have, it is called ‘CoffeeHousers Wall’.

Naomi Muse

Enough of bully Brown. Enough.

We've had our fill of him and his ilk who left us in such a mess whilst he curried favour with the banks and filled every office he could with public sector workers, overloading the wealth generation capacity of this enterprising isle.

All of the Labour acolites who are now publishing 'expose' tomes should be ignored.

The reality is that Brown was re-elected by his constituents at the general election in May and he is failing to do his duty to work for them in parliament. He must be given his P45.

The Laughing Cavalier

The more one learns of this vile collection of people the more one realises just how unfit for office they were and a remain. In just 13 years they wrought more destruction on the fabric of British society and its economy than all previous politicians put together. It is difficult to know which of them should be condemned most; Blair for his cowardice in not getting rid of Brown or the Scotch loon himself for the deliberate sacrifice of the economy on the altar of personal ambition.

Brownloather

None of these revelations are a surprise they merely affirm what sensible people recognised from the outset; that Brown was a deranged, arrogant, bullying, coward and vicious thug. Labour voters have betrayed and shamed this country for allowing this wicked scumbag thirteen years to destroy this country in pursuit of his own stratospherically deluded ambitions. Brown led this country to the very edge of the abyss and Tony Blair should be ashamed of allowing him to do so. By the way: "you promised me that David Davies would be elected Tory leader"!!!!! The man is truly unhinged.

Norman Dee

Unfortunately none of this well aimed bile and venom will do anything to stop the inevitable move he will make into an enormously well paid job with a huge pension, and living like a scab (Kinnock) on the backs of us.

Dysgwr Cymraeg

Would that be the same kinnock that said the house of lords was unelected, undemocratic etc, but then joined it? Principles?. I think not.

Verityred

davidk

Try as you feebly might, you can't run away from the truth.

Dismissing it in the rather weak manner you do, just shows you up as a Labour stooge.

Roger Davies

Brown should be exiled for life.

JohnBUK

I say, hang on chaps! Isn't GB a "son of the manse" (he told us so himself) and isn't Tony a born-again Catholic? None of this slander can be true, surely?

Holly ......

davidk IS RoY.

Holly ......

Both make me feel physically sick!!!
Like standing on a snail...which by the way I have only done once,well the wheely bin did it,but I still ended up 'throwing' in the bathroom.
Can't say anymore....too sick.

Moraymint

Weren't they supposed to be running the country?

Simon Mennie

Moraymint

Moraymint@10:17pm

Substitute "ruining" for "running" and the question answers itself.

Holly@7.22pm...

davidk as RoY.Hmm...as yet no evidence of the trademark Augustan wit effortlessly dispensed in faultless syntax,the balanced, intellectually unassailable tours d'horizon of all our present troubles...

Richard of Moscow

Just wondering where the Blair fan club has gone. There is usually some David Aaronovich-type drivel claiming, "The fact that Blair was a semi-literate, incompetent, cowardly boot-licker should not detract from all his achievements..." which they are unable to name.

Of course Blair was scared of Brown, terrorists, global warming, his wife, bad headlines, memebers of the public, questions etc. What, or who, did NOT scare him?