“It worked for Tony, so it might just work for me.” That’s what must be going through Gordon Brown’s head at the moment, as – according to this story in the Independent – he’s turning to leading Blairite figures, such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, for advice.
If true, it’s fairly astonishing – after all, these are people whom Brown undermined and attacked, for the best part of a decade, in his effort to reach the very top. But it’s perhaps even more surprising that the Blairites are going along with it all. Campbell, for example, is said to be “talking regularly” with Brown, and may even take up some informal position in government. One guess is that he’s so concerned about the fate of the party that old enmities have been pushed aside. Another is that the Blairites want to seize centre stage – once again.
I’m sure the second possibility will be causing a few headaches in Downing Street. The current operation there is already fractured enough, with a tense divide between ‘The Old Guard’ of Sue Nye and Damian McBride, and ‘The New Guard’ of Stephen Carter and Jeremy Haywood. Throwing figures like Campbell into that already-volatile mix could be more trouble than it’s worth for our Prime Minister.
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