Archives for September 2006

Just how many times did John Reid say the word 'leadership' during his speech? Again, and again, and again...

Of course, not in the context of leading the Labour Party - perish the thought - but rather leadership for the country, against the threat of terror. But he knew exactly how we'd interpret it. (Watch the speech - and draw your own conclusions - here.)

Let's be clear - John Reid doesn't want to declare, because he doesn't have to make up his mind over whether to run yet. What he wants is for us to declare for him. The media say he's a candidate, he then looks at the reaction within the party and in the polls, he hopes and prays that Gordon continues to have slightly tricky poll ratings, and then, in a few months' time, when the PM's announcement finally comes, he makes his decision.

And whether he runs for the leadership or not, the process is a warning to Gordon Brown - a message to keep Reid as home secretary.

There's a community of people in the Labour Party who believe the chancellor is unelectable, but unstoppable. Now, they have to make their minds up. Can they, and are they willing to, turn Gordon Brown into somebody who is electable - or can they stop him? In John Reid, they've found someone who they think might be able to do just that.

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They choose the music ever so carefully for these big conference speeches.

"We're not invincible" were the words which rang out as Cherie Blair walked into that hall to watch her husband's farewell speech. She, of course, knew that he had proved to be invincible at the polls. It wasn't the Tories, it was Labour that forced Tony Blair to depart now - instead of serving the full term he promised at the last election.

He could have made his forced exit a painful one - he could have attacked his critics - snubbed Gordon Brown - angrily defended his wife - lectured his party on the way forward. That he did none of those things will be a source of huge relief to many in this party.

It will, of course, mean that - like every great showman - he left the stage with the crowd wanting more. It is hard to believe after this fond farewell that Tony Blair may not leave Downing Street for another seven months but he IS heading for the exits and - as Take That's lyrics have it - Someday soon this will be someone else's dream

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Maybe the most significant thing about Tony Blair's speech (watch it in full here) is not what was he said, but the tone with which he said it. The prime minister made it easy for his party to say goodbye to him - he made it easy for Labour to move on.

The speech could have been one of defiance aimed at those who've tried to bring him down, or one of anger towards Gordon Brown. It could have been a lecture to the next leader about what he should do. It was none of those things.

It is hard, against the backdrop of this speech - the nostalgic atmosphere, the crack in his voice, Blair's family gathered around him - to imagine the prime minister waiting more than half a year to hand in his resignation. And in theory, of course, he may not resign until next May, with a series of vital decisions to take, people to meet and things to achieve. It's quite surreal.

The unofficial agreement at this conference was supposed to be 'don't mention the war', don't mention the timetable. That only changed because Cherie, allegedly, slipped up yesterday. And wasn't it stylish how Blair dealt with that. Even I'm getting nostalgic.

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The torture chamber. That's how Harold Macmillan described television when it first began to intrude into politics. And that was when a tough question consisted of a reporter asking the PM, "have you anything to say prime minister?".

Compare that with what Gordon Brown is going through today. This morning the chancellor moved from one camera and microphone to the next in Manchester's Midland Hotel. At each he was followed by a crowd of onloookers watching his every smile or grimace and listening to and scrutinising every word.

Even between interviews - as he consulted his notes or asked for a drink - zoom lenses were pointing at him. Throughout this everyone knew that he was not being asked to defend his actions or his policies or his beliefs - but his personality. That is also how his speech today will be judged.

His enemies in the Labour Party have set him a test - prove that you can be popular. Let's be clear, it's a test that's been set mainly by people who want him to fail and believe he will. They know that they cannot afford to do "a Clarke" and launch a full-frontal assault on Brown. They know that the polls don't look too good for Gordon - in part, of course, because they have provided the media and the public with a script - "he's psychologically flawed... he's not a team player... he's an obsessive".

Now they are challenging Gordon Brown to prove them wrong. All feuds have two sides, of course. Mr Brown must now be rueing how easily he's made enemies rather in the past.

The question hanging over this conference today is, "has Gordon got it?". There is another question though - if he proves he has got it, has the Labour Party got it within themselves to forgive, forget and back him, or are some determined to bring him down?

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I'm in God's own city. That's Manchester to you. You'll have to forgive this north-west boy's local pride.

The watchword here is Basil Fawlty's "don't mention the war". The war in question is, of course, the war over the succession. One minister greeted me with a prediction that we're in for a week of "mush and gush". Blair-ites, Brown-ites and anybodyelse-ites share a desire to maintain the political ceasefire.

Tony Blair, as ever, put it better than anyone else this morning (watch the interview here) when he said that Labour had gone AWOL from the British public and had to show this week that they'd learnt their lesson.

This injunction will succeed, I suspect - but only up to a point. There'll be no stopping people talking about the leadership - indeed, the foreign secretary backed Gordon Brown within minutes of the PM saying that the Cabinet had all agreed not to talk about the leadership issue. However, most will try to do so in a calm and civilised way.

There's one or two "buts" to add to that prediction though:

"But 1" is that, like the little boy in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, someone at this huge gathering may not have cottoned on to what they're supposed to think and say.

"But 2" is that the real conference takes place not on the stage but late (very late) at night in the bars here - and alcohol and weariness have a way of making people forget their inhibitions.

After all, who imagined that Walter Wolfgang would steal the show last time.

PS: This is not, by the way, the first conference Labour has held in Manchester. It's the third. The Labour Representation Committee - the forerunner of the party - held the first here just a century ago - it lasted one day. The second was in January 1917, in Manchester's Albert Hall during the First World War.

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I mentioned yesterday a documentary I've made for Radio Four called What Does Gordon Really Think? You can hear it by clicking here - but you might be wondering why we put the programme together.

The reason is simple: Gordon Brown's character and views are now under the most intense scrutiny. They are all that could stand in the way of him fulfilling not just his dream but what he’s long believed is his destiny. For more than a decade political journalists, like me, have obsessed about the Blair/Brown dynamic (who, by the way, would now argue that it didn’t matter or that we were making it all up?) Now though the question that needs to be answered is what the man who would be Britain's next prime minister would be like in the job.

In the years BC (Before Clarke), no-one who really counted would go on the record to list the alleged character flaws which until then had only filled journalists notebooks anonymously. Now in the weeks AD (After the Disaster) they’ve gone silent again.

David Blunkett discloses that Brown is so driven that he sometimes barely sleeps or eats : “I was sitting next to him in Cabinet bemoaning that I’d only had five hours sleep and Gordon thought that was rather a lot. If he’s got an idea in his head, he’ll be up writing, scribbling. When you stay with Gordon and Sarah…Sarah has to drag him out from his study in order to be able to eat. He’s politics, politics, politics”. That’s proof to some of Gordon Brown's commitment and dedication. It’s evidence for others that he's an obsessive and is psychologically flawed.

So, friends and foes agree that Gordon Brown isn't an easy man to work with. What divides them is whether they believe his other qualities make the effort worthwhile. That and their hopes or fears about what Gordon really thinks.

At the root of Brown’s views are the teachings of his father. The themes of the Reverend John Brown's collected sermons are recognisably Brown-ite - “Towards set objectives”, “Making the best use of time” and "The vision of duty". As a young man Gordon Brown wrote about the need to tackle the gap "between what people are and what they have it in themselves to become". Neil Kinnock has a neat way of summing up that mission. He labels him not “Capability Brown” but “Justice Brown”

So, what might “Justice Brown” do in office? His political challenge will be to convince voters there's been a change from the Blair years whilst reassuring his party that there's enough continuity to counter charges of betrayal. The agenda for change is becoming increasingly clear.

First, a package of reforms designed to break Labour's reputation for spin, sleaze and control freakery. Brown has spoken of the need to re-invigorate the constitutional reform agenda - giving Parliament the power to declare war, completing the reform of the House of Lords and devolving more power to the regions and to local councils. Brown believes that his decision to make the Bank of England independent restored trust in the setting of interest rates by preventing politicians interfering. He’s now considering repeating the trick for the running of the NHS. The government would still set the overall budget and strategic policy but a new independent NHS Board could take over the day to day running of the health service.

Those hoping for an end to Blair’s wars or a libertarian shift away from Blair’s laws are likely to be disappointed. Yet, alongside the war on terror there’s likely to be a war on the global poverty which Brown believes feeds support for terrorism. The chancellor has campaigned to wipe out third world debt. Less well known is his proposal for an economic plan for the Middle East. “Justice Brown” believes that economics lies at the root of most problems. Brown’s known to be scathing of Tony Blair’s handling of the EU - believing it to be long on charm and short on strategy. One prediction by Ed Balls, a close ally and fellow Treasury minister, is likely to send a shiver around Brussels and produce a groan in the Foreign Office. Balls told me that Brown’s negotiating style will mirror Margaret Thatcher’s before hastily adding “in the early years” (the years she got “Britain’s money back” and helped shape the single market) Balls says :

“Going to an international meeting, the easiest thing to do is draft a fudge communique and go home, but if you want to make change that’s not good enough. It’s the people who are banging the table and saying ‘it’s not good enough, we’ve actually got to do something’, they’re the change makers.”

The issue that has most divided Gordon Brown from Tony Blair is public service reform. Brown has been infuriated by the endless talk of the “need for reform” fearing that it has undermined morale in the NHS and risks convincing the public that only privatisation will cure the health service’s ills. What is not yet clear is whether as prime minister he’d merely change the rhetoric or the reforms themselves. It’s an uncertainty fuelled by a speech he gave – or rather didn’t quite give - to a private dinner at the TUC Conference. Journalists were told he would make a statement of unequivocal support for Tony Blair's NHS reforms. It would have been an important signal had he said it. No-one I’ve spoken to can recall him saying that or anything like it.

For the dozen years since Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Gordon Brown’s ideas have been shrouded – sometimes by baffling jargon, occasionally by tactical silence, always by a tendency to work through ideas in secret with a few close friends before springing surprises on voters and colleagues alike. There may not now be much longer to find out what he really thinks.

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This is me standing in front of one of the nation's most famous Rollers. The number plate AMS1 should give it away. It's Sir Alan Sugar's motor. The entrepreneur (and hirer and firer of apprentices) is, I've discovered, a chum of the man who would be Britain's next prime minister.

I’ve been speaking to those who’ve grown up with Gordon Brown, who've worked with and debated with him for a Radio 4 documentary called What Does Gordon Really Think? (to be broadcast on Saturday at 11am). Friends can often, albeit inadvertently, be more revealing than enemies. Tune in to see who else has interesting things to say about the character and the views of Gordon Brown

PS My kids were very disappointed to learn that his boardroom at his low key HQ just down the road from Brentwood station in Essex looks nothing like the glamorous modern office suite on the penthouse of a city skyscraper shown in the programme. Is nothing real in TV?!!

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Like a stick of Brighton rock Ming Campbell's speech (watch it in full here) had one word running though it - the word was substance.

He wanted, of course, to draw a contrast with the spin which he alleges David Cameron has copied from Tony Blair. He wanted too to signal to his own party that the days when they could rely on a likeable leader and a handful of populist symbolic policies were over.

Campbell knows that much of his party's current appeal is time-limited. The war in Iraq will be long gone by the time of the next election - along, of course, with Messrs Blair and Bush. Hence the importance the Lib Dem leader attaches to its decision this week to adopt green taxes as as an answer to what Ming Campbell calls the greatest moral and practical challenge we face - climate change.

Just as significant for him was the absence of nostalgia for the man he replaced - Charles Kennedy. There was not a mention of him in today's speech. The party has moved on - no mean achievement given where they were a few months ago. Now, the rather bigger task begins of selling their new leader and new policies to the public.

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We are the party of substance. That's the message Ming Campbell wants to go out from Brighton today. It's a message that's supposed to work on many levels.

To his activists he's saying, "we are not a party of symbolism".
Translation - Charles Kennedy was all symbols and no gong. Let's consign populist gestures and woolly thinking to the past along with him.

To the country he's saying, "we are not a party of spin".
Translation - I may not be as photogenic as David Cameron but at least you know what I think.

To the media he's saying, "political debate in this country is in danger of losing sight of what matters".
Translation - do stop going on about how old I am.

Before you shout "hear hear" just dwell for a moment on the fact that his speech is to be preceded by a slide show (they couldn't afford a video) showing Ming the world-class athlete, Ming the fighter pilot (actually, he was only a passenger in the jet in the photo) and Ming the campaigner alongside Nelson Mandela.

Ming began the week, you may recall, with a photo opportunity with "Campbell's crackers" (er, women MPs to you and me). Later he declared that he knew the Arctic Monkeys had sold more records than the Beatles (which they haven't).

The Lib Dems are in danger of looking just a little too anxious about their new leader's image. They winced at a vicious cartoon in The Guardian of Ming in a wheelchair wrapped in a car rug declaring, "go back to your constituencies and prepare for death". They fear that all anyone knows about him is his age.

They want, quite understandably, people to know that their man started life in a Glasgow tenement and made a success in sport and the law before turning to politics. They know that they've traded a well-known and well-liked leader for one many can't even name.

Perhaps though they should heed their leader's speech. Ming's predecessors won the public's attention by taking stands on issues of substance. Ashdown did it on the plight of Hong Kong Chinese and Bosnia. The fact that he had been in the SBS counted, I suspect, for little. Kennedy did it on Iraq. The fact that he started life in a Highland croft scarcely mattered.

Voters do want to know about the lives and the backgrounds of their leaders. We, in the media, have a voracious appetite for it but Campbell is right - he'll be judged by substance not stills of his past life.

PS: They've just played that slide show and the conference laughed at the "Top Gun" image of Ming the fighter (pilot) passenger.

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BRIGHTON: Well well. So now we know. Despite Charles Kennedy's proclamation of loyalty to his successor we discover that he refused to stage a public show of unity in which old leader and new would shake hands on the Conference stage.

I have just been interviewing Sir Ming Campbell about his tax plans (who are the rich who will pay more?), why he's frightened to say that coalition government would be good for Britain, his reaction to cartoons which portray him as an old boy with a zimmer frame or in a wheelchair and the handshake that never was. (Watch the whole interview here.)

Diplomatically he says: "We discussed the choreography. This was Charles Kennedy's day."

Behind the scenes they are less diplomatic. Charles clearly cannot forgive. Neither, let it be said, can many here who note bitterly that Kennedy gave no apology for the agony he put his party through as he battled his drink problem (and, incidentally, who chastised me for suggesting yesterday that his speech was better than the ones he gave as leader!).

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Today the Lib Dems had to face up to how their party's changed since ditching their leader.

Charles Kennedy reminded them of what they had before - a leader who was well-known, well-liked and well - not tainted by being just another politician. He ended his speech by declaring that "the best was yet to come" - and you couldn't help feeling he might mean for him and not just for his party.

The debate about Ming Campbell's tax plans confronted the Lib Dems with what they've gained after Kennedy - a leader who believes that seriousness and credibility matter more than personal popularity. His party voted today to boldly go where no party has gone before. That, of course, is for good reason. Voters may say it's time to do something about climate change but no-one knows if the Lib Dems are right that voters are ready to pay for it by paying more to drive and more to fly.

In those "before and after" adverts, people always look glum before and happy after. Today the Lib Dems looked like a party unsure whether it was better off or not.

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I wrote the last entry whilst watching the lights go out on the Lib Dems debate about tax (there are power cuts in Brighton). We'll discover soon whether the party turns out the lights on Ming's tax policy.

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BRIGHTON: How on earth did it come to this? The party that promised to save the NHS from privatisation and is on course to have trebled its budget finds itself under siege for, you guessed it, privatising the NHS and making cuts.

The answer is clear. Labour came to power without a strategy for running the health service, and the strategy it has now adopted appears to many of its own supporters to contradict much of what it said to get into power. Then it attacked the hated Tory internal market. Now it has re-introduced a version of it (albeit one that ministers insist is fairer and less destructive than the old one). Then it attacked the invitation to private companies to work in the NHS. Now it says that private companies are vital to delivering the values of the NHS. Then it promised to - and later did - build new local hospitals. Now it has accepted the emerging consensus in the medical profession that the NHS needs fewer, bigger, more specialised hospitals.

The reason this happened is because in opposition the party's intellectual firepower was all directed at policies where Labour was seen as politically vulnerable. As one of those involved put it to me at the time, "what do we need a new NHS strategy for? We're 33 per cent ahead of the Tories on health." Another confessed that if you look at the siting of new hospitals, they tended to be in Labour constituencies (incidentally, I'm told, that the last Tory government did exactly the same - favouring its own seats for capital spending).

The result - a strike this week and a possible conference defeat next week in protest at the privatisation of NHS logistics. Meanwhile doctors are talking of running candidates against Labour at the election in protest at hospital closures.

The question now is how the government will react. Tony Blair is more convinced than ever that his reforms are the only way forward. He points to the gap between the performance of the NHS in England with that in Wales, where similar reforms were resisted. Gordon Brown though has long been privately critical of the rhetoric of reform which demoralises staff and leads the public to doubt that the NHS is delivering.

Last week before a speech to the TUC dinner he issued a press release including a quote in which he gave his full backing to the Prime Minister's NHS reforms. In the end it was a statement he never made, choosing instead to declare - to union applause - that the NHS would never be privatised.

The question that has not been convincingly answered is whether Prime Minister Brown would simply change the rhetoric or the policy as well.

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Behold! A debate is born.

It may prove hard to escape personalities and focus on issues this conference season. After all, it's Ming and David's first conferences - and Tony's last. Gordon and Charlie hover in the wings. And some wonder whether Alan or John or the other John may soon join the fray. Let's not, though, fail to notice that this is one of the most fertile periods for political debate in years.

This week the Lib Dems tax debate risks looking all too familiar - should they be to the left of Labour or the right? Bold on raising taxes or cautious? Defeat the new leadership or back it? In truth, for good or ill, the Lib Dems are carving out new political territory. They are boldly going where no party has gone before but where, I predict, all parties will soon follow.

They are considering taking the public at their green word and saying, "OK - you tell us that you're worried about the environment. So, we're going to tax you more to use your car and to fly". For centuries our leaders have turned from taxing windows, to taxing homes, cars, and pretty much everything else in search of revenue raising which meets the least resistance. If that's all the move green taxes is, it will not be bold at all. If though, it represents a serious attempt to change public behaviour, to consume and travel less, it really will be a bold political experiment. .

And it is far from the only interesting political debate in town. Last week Alan Milburn launched the debate about the future of New Labour which he's long demanded with a meaty speech. Next week a book of Gordon Brown's speeches is published proving that he's no slouch when it comes to ideas. (Guess what? I've read them all. I had to. I'm just finishing off a radio documentary called "What does Gordon really think?" - Radio 4 this Saturday at 11:00)

And now we hear the Cabinet are to be invited to join the debate - whatever next?

Even the Tories, who in recent years have tended to regard debate as another word for division, are starting to show an appetite for new ideas as David Cameron's policy reviews bears some early fruit.

Tony Benn always takes people like me to task for focussing on "the pershonalities" and not "the ishoos". My answer has always been that it's both that count. Over the next 3 weeks I've little doubt that personalities will get more coverage than issues but I'll be watching how the debate hots up.

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What, said some, was the point of Tony Blair staying in office now that he's said he's going. On this trip to the Middle East he's tried to come up with one answer. He's presented himself, and seems to be accepted, as an envoy promoting Middle East peace.

To those who say that's impossible given his support for America and for Israel, Tony Blair replies that's precisely why it is possible. He's offering to use his influence to secure American backing, and an Israeli signature, on any future peace deal.

First in the Palestinian territories, then in Lebanon, he was accepted on those terms, despite angry public protests at Britain's role in the war on Lebanon.

Cynics will say they remember the prime minister, soon after 9/11, claiming that the kaleidoscope had been shaken, that the world could be remade, starting, he said, with bringing justice to the people of Gaza. His reply is a simple one: You can only keep trying.

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BEIRUT: Tony Blair has just touched down for the last and trickiest leg of his Middle East tour. He has come to Lebanon less than a month after the end of a war which claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people and which some blame him for doing too little to stop. What's more he's flown in from Israel - a journey which, I'm told, has very rarely been made - where he embraced warmly the man who ordered the attacks.

Tony Blair is braced for demonstrations and his staff have decided not to take the risk of trying to visit bomb ravaged southern Beirut. The reception committee which might have awaited Mr Blair would, no doubt, have gone beyond the jostling and jeering which greeted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

One who will not be greeting the prime minister is Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri. His explanation that he was "out of town ....on private business" turns out to be a little less than the full story. He is, in fact, in Iran. I suppose it could be worse for Tony Blair. He could be meeting Gordon Brown - just to pass on a gift for the baby, of course.

Do not expect Tony Blair to be repentant at his news conference with the Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora. He is, I'm told, proud of Britain's role in proposing and helping to deliver the framework - an international force as a buffer between Israel and Hizbollah - for the UN resolution which halted the conflict. He still insists that without this, calls for an immediate ceasefire were meaningless "grandstanding". What will be fascinating is to see how Mr Siniora reacts to him.

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Ramallah: Tony Blair is saying the bare minimum in defence of his chancellor. Do not be fooled into thinking that this is only because he thinks it is "disrespectful" to talk about these issues whilst in a war-torn region.

Asked whether he believed Gordon Brown had been involved in a coup attempt he could have said "nonsense" or "there's no evidence for that". He chose instead to say, "of course I accept Gordon's assurances".

It is Mr Brown who feels under pressure to utter warm words about Mr Blair and not the other way round.

The prime minister feels free to put his energies into pursuing progress in the Middle East and is visibly cheered by the decision of President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert to meet, and the talk of the creation of a Palestinian government of national unity - which though it would include Hamas - would accept the right of Israel to exist.

P.S. It is rather odd listening to Gordon Brown's interview on a mobile in the military parade ground of the Palestinian president's compound, and typing this on a Blackberry on a bus taking me through the West Bank.

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Well well well.

It's long been a joke amongst plyers of my trade that there's one thing worse than the Chancellor refusing to be interviewed by you. That's if he agrees. He is notorious for ignoring the question, sticking relentlessly on message and rarely displaying humanity. This is all the more galling when you know how different he can be in private.

Not so this morning's interview with Andy Marr (watch it here). For years Gordon Brown has been told - by friends and foe alike - that he needs to change his style. Today he did - he was softly spoken, answered questions and spoke almost fluent human.

Just as significant was the change in what he said. The words he used to describe Tony Blair were fulsome rather than grudging. He welcomed rather than resisted internal debate. He signalled rather than concealed some of the policy directions he might pursue as PM.

Most intriguing of all was his acknowledgment that he'd allowed friendships to be the casualties of politics.

Was he driven to this by the ferocious personal criticism he's suffered in recent days? Does he feel liberated by the fact he knows that his time may come very soon? Both I suspect.

"New Gordon" will be treated with incredulity by those who will snort with derision at his denial of knowledge of the attempt to bring Tony Blair down and by those who've been battered and bruised by him over the years. What they will ask now is for proof that he means it and will be able to break the habits of a political lifetime.

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There is, of course, a connection - beyond the merely flippant - between Tony Blair's political troubles and his efforts to end the troubles of the Middle East. His stance on Israel's war in the Lebanon poured petrol on to the burning embers of resentment at the Iraq war. This will lead many to dismiss this trip as merely a photo opportunity designed, in the provocative words of a Palestinian protest, "to wash Lebanese blood off his hands using Palestinian water".

It is neither fair nor accurate, however, to say that the prime minister has suddenly alighted on the issue of Palestine. I recall his passionate speech to the Labour Party conference soon after 9/11 when he declared that "the kaleidoscope had been shaken" and that the world should be "re-made", starting with bringing justice to the people of Gaza. I travelled to Israel and to Gaza with him then and Mr Blair displayed his characteristic optimism by insisting that there was a real chance of peace.

Many in George Bush's administration credit him with selling the "roadmap" for peace to the president and persuading him to publicly declare his support for a "two state solution".

The last time he was in Israel - in 2004 - the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon used a joint press conference to declare that withdrawal from Gaza was his first step and not his last.

"So what?" many will reply, with Gaza facing a humanitarian crisis and counting its dead; Israeli citizens frightened to live in large parts of Israel, and Lebanon still counting its dead and measuring the cost of destruction.

His answer will be to try to use his influence with George Bush and the credit he now has with the Israelis to argue - as he did in his recent speech in LA - that solving the Palestinian problem should be their top priority. The prime minister's aims for this trip are modest - to persuade both sides of the need to start to talk again. He will also use his experience in Northern Ireland to insist that this issue needs constant high-level engagement.

There's one intriguing thought which that parallel throws up. Peace in Northern Ireland required the British government to talk to terrorists. It's intriguing to note that Gerry Adams was here last week. Perhaps he's advising Hamas on how he persuaded the British government to talk to Sinn Fein before the IRA disarmed. The Israelis, with British support, currently refuse to engage with the Hamas government and Mr Blair will have no meetings with them here. I'm told that Tony Blair understands that one day politicians like him and later the Israelis will have to engage with those they now refuse to speak to.

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TEL AVIV: Blairforce One has just touched down in Israel (forgive the cliche but I have to use it while I still can - Brownforce One simply doesn't have the same ring to it).

The prime minister is here to persuade first the Israelis and then the Palestinians that their peace and security rests in starting to talk again and stopping provocative attacks.

Come to think of it that is also his message to the Labour Party though we were told in mid-air that he would refuse to speak about this since all his energies are focused on the vital issue of Middle East peace.

To be fair this morning in London he did call on "personal attacks by anyone on anyone" to stop and gave Gordon Brown credit for creating New Labour with him. He did not, however, and will not, it seems, defend his chancellor's reputation. He may be waiting - as we all are - to see what Mr Brown has to say to Andrew Marr on Sunday AM tomorrow.

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So much for the idea that Labour has drawn a line under what Peter Mandelson called its "week of madness". Charles Clarke's extraordinary intervention in this morning's London Evening Standard has ensured that that madness will carry on not just through the weekend but for months to come. Why? Because Mr Clarke has said in public what many senior Labour figures have - up until now - said only in private (often in more colourful language).

He and they believe that Gordon Brown could have stopped this week's resignations by junior members of the government "with a click of his fingers". Some go further and claim that Mr Brown personally orchestrated the revolt.

Their evidence is not just what Charles Clarke called the "terrible picture" of Mr Brown grinning in his car as he left Downing Street, not just his well known closeness to the minister who resigned, Tom Watson, but also a more serious allegation. One Blairite told me that on Wednesday morning before anyone had resigned the Chancellor used the threat that they would resign to try to extract concessions from the Prime Minister.

Clarke spells out the root of the anger felt about Brown among those who've worked with him when he condemns him for "failing to work with Cabinet colleagues". First on foundation hospitals, then tuition fees and recently on pension reform, Cabinet ministers saw Brown as the enemy within. This leads Clarke to his most damning conclusion that "the jury is still out" on Brown's fitness to lead.

"So what," you may say. Nobody can be friends with everyone. Gordon Brown can have a Cabinet which does not include Clarke or indeed Milburn and Byers. Oh yes and the others he's fallen out with - Hutton and Reid. And let's not forget the PM's chums - Falconer and Jowell. And Peter Mandelson will be persona non grata of course. Indeed he could. The problem is that these people are not willing to simply walk away and leave Gordon Brown to inherit and, they fear, dismantle the New Labour project they helped to create.

Yesterday saw not the end of the war in the Labour Party but just one skirmish. The war is about who leads it and in one direction and it will run and run.

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If you think it's all over, think again.

Today's statements by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown do not reflect a deal between the two men to work together. They reflect, instead, mutual panic.

Tony Blair became convinced that unless he personally promised that he'd be gone in a year, some in his party might conspire to have him out within weeks.

Gordon Brown feared that he was becoming seen in a way he's desperate to avoid: at worst, as Tony Blair's assassin; at best, as someone demanding a private stitch-up to make him prime minister.

Both men also saw the mortal danger facing the political project they've been jointly working on for more than two decades. That's why both men took a step back from the precipice and most MPs will step back with them.

However, the root of the problem remains. Gordon Brown wants Tony Blair to seek his agreement on the policies and the personnel he expects to inherit next year. He wants
Tony Blair's main cheerleaders to stop portraying him as an obstacle to reform. But they believe he personally ordered an attempted coup against the prime minister and are all the more determined to stop him taking over.

It will take an act of extraordinary political will to overcome these. Hunger to hold on to power may make that possible but today - despite the carefully chosen words - that decision has not been taken by the protagonists on either side.

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First Tony Blair said there would be no timetable. Uber-Blairites told me they were still urging him to stay on until 2008. Then we were told he'd be gone in a year. Then he'd resign on 31 May (remember that?!).

This morning Jack Straw suggested he'd go earlier still, giving his successor time to fight David Cameron before next summer's break from politics - convincing many of us that Tony Blair might have to go before May's elections. Now Downing Street insists that Tony Blair has no intention of leaving before May.

So, what do we know?

• First, whatever newspaper headlines say - there is no date, there is no deal, there is no certainty. Why? Because Tony Blair is sinking in quicksand while his party looks on. He doesn't know what will be enough to convince them that it's time to offer him a hand and pull him out of immediate danger.

• Second, after yesterday's nightmare of division and acrimony all sides will want to be seen to pull back today. Tony Blair will publicly confirm this afternoon that he'll go in the next year but he will not be more specific. Gordon Brown will publicly call on the party to pull together but say that when Tony Blair goes is a matter for Tony Blair. No deal on timing will be done. Neither will give reporters the chance to question them to find out more.

• Thirdly, many Labour activists want a change of leader before May's elections because they fear electoral anihilation if the voters treat the elections as a referendum on Tony Blair's leadership.

• Fourthly, as a result, the latest thinking emanating from the Blair camp is that the PM will announce early in the New Year (perhaps at Labour's Spring Conference) his intention to resign after those elections. A speedy leadership election would allow the new prime minister time before the summer to make an impact - just as Jack Straw was indicating this morning.

• Fifthly, all this may change since both friends and foes of the prime minister believe that getting from here to May may be incredibly difficult even if there's good will on both sides - something which is far from guaranteed.

• Sixthly, keep reading, listening and watching as what you're witnessing is poltics at its rawest and most significant - the wrestling of power from the leader of our country. That, by the way, is my answer to all those who've complained that I write too much about personalities, squabbles, and timetables.

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Now that one minister and a handful of ministerial aides have resigned two groups of people face a decision today.

The Brownites: They are accused of attempting a coup by Tony Blair's friends. If that's right they have to decide if they are going to follow it through. Will this become not just this group of relatively junior folk - but senior cabinet ministers, as they did with Thatcher in 1990, saying to the PM, "you need to go and you need to go soon"?

The Blairites: Can they bring themselves to work with Gordon Brown to make a reality of this awkward phrase "stable and orderly transition"? They haven't so far for one good reason - they don't want Gordon Brown to become PM. They wanted their man to stay in office so someone else could emerge. If they can bring themselves to work with Brown, perhaps he'll call the dogs off. Perhaps.

Until we know the answers to those two questions, we can't know whether Tony Blair will be here for eight more months as he hopes, or just weeks.

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So now we know. Tony Blair will resign on May 31st.

Well, maybe but maybe not. I am a little sceptical about the date that appeared overnight in The Sun and has been picked up by many of its rivals. May 31st is not a date in Tony Blair's diary. It is, instead, the the latest possible point on the political calendar for the PM to announce formally that he's standing down as Labour leader.

Why?

Because there's no point in him staying beyond the end of the parliamentary year (the end of next July) and it will take the party a couple of months to elect a successor.

But before you assume that's done and dusted, do not forget that we still don't know whether Labour MPs will be satisfied with the promise that their leader will be gone sometime in a year. Many will say "if then why not sooner so that we can take on the Tories again and avoid disaster in May's elections". Others will insist that they need to hear from the PM himself not merely from "his friends". The Brown-ites want a process of transition like that adopted by a company chief executive handing over to his successor.

That brings us to the heart of Labour's problem. It is perfectly true that unlike the Tories in 1990 there is no ideological split in the party. But there is another split which could - and I do emphasise could - be as damaging. It's the split between Brownites and Blairites which has been festering for a dozen years ever since Tony won and Gordon lost the Labour leadership. It's more about personal animus than policy difference but no less poisonous for that.

The Blairites wanted their man to stay longer in large part because they wanted to find an ABG (Anyone but Gordon) candidate. Once it was Milburn, then Blunkett, then Clarke. Now their hopes are pinned by John Reid.

Even if he can't win they hope he and they can flush out Gordon Brown out (ending what Alan Milburn called a "trappist silence") and force him to publicly pin in his colours to the New Labour mast. He is equally determined to resist.

This story is far from over.

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By no means everyone in the Labour Party believes that the party's problems will be solved by changing leaders or setting out a timetable. Some believe that the problems are more a matter of policies than personnel.

Foremost amongst those is Charles Clarke, who gave an interesting lecture this morning expressing scepticism about the need to renew Trident or build nuclear power stations; backed green taxes and the completion of House of Lords reform and much more besides. You can read his speech here (word document) or watch my interview with him here.

PS: Now another letter's being planned. This one says that MPs back David Miliband's prediction that the PM will be gone by this time next year. More on this later.

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So has Tony Blair seen this famous letter? On one hand, we're told that the letter has not been received in Downing St, but on the other, a senior Cabinet source has told me that they have seen it - and that in effect, it calls for Tony Blair to go.

And today, the chairman of Labour's NEC Sir Jeremy Beecham, as well as Cabinet minister David Miliband - close to Tony Blair and once the head of his policy unit - have appeared on the BBC (listen here and here), effectively setting out the very timetable that Tony Blair has been refusing to confirm. What they've said is that Blair will be gone within a year, and that he will not attend another Labour Party conference.

This is precisely what many Labour Party members have been demanding to know, and I am now told that in Downing St, they are hoping that this will be enough to quell this storm.

The question is - does it have to be heard from the prime minister himself? That, really, tells you what this story is all about. Many Labour MPs, certainly many around Gordon Brown, simply don't trust what they're being told, and won't unless they hear it said publicly by Tony Blair himself.

They're sick of code about ample time and stable and orderly transitions, they're sick of Sir Jeremy Beecham or David Miliband telling us what they think the PM wants to do, they want to hear it from him - that he plans to go on, but not to go on for more than another year, and that he plans to make sure that there is a decent handover - probably to Gordon Brown.

And my suspicion is that this pressure will stay until those words come from his lips.

What today has proved is that the era of nudges and winks, the era of 'trust me' from Tony Blair, is no longer enough for many in Blair's party, and even his Cabinet.

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No longer is it just talk about letters that might be written and might be signed and might be sent. A letter has been sent to Tony Blair demanding that he sorts out his departure and does it soon.

Just as significant is who sent the letter - two MPs who would until a few months ago have been top of Downing Street's list of loyalists to sign a pledge of undying allegiance to the PM.

This on the day when another private document has leaked into the public domain, which will be causing not just red faces but cries of anguish inside Number Ten. The Daily Mirror has published the master plan for the countdown to the big day. Amongst other gems it contains the line:

"He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won't even play that last encore."

To achieve this his team will aim to book him onto Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and the Chris Evans show. As the Greeks used to say - first comes Hubris then comes Nemesis (or as my Mum would say 'pride comes before a fall').

This leak will only serve to confirm the mounting anxiety amongst Labour MPs that Tony Blair and his circle are putting his interests ahead of theirs. Another passage will also serve to confirm the suspicions of Gordon Brown and his supporters:

"...the more successful we are the more it will agitate and possibly destabilise him (Gordon Brown)."

The Prime Minister will now have to do something to shore up his position. He could try confirming the prediction of David Miliband this morning (hear the interview here) that this will be his last Conference as leader. He could start a formal process of planning 'a stable and orderly transition' with Gordon Brown. He may think of something else. But doing nothing is not now an option.

• PS: Many thanks to James Landale for looking after the blog while I was away. You can read an archive of all his posts by clicking here.

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