Blair: Brown should go or Labour face disaster at polls... and to make it worse Ruth Kelly hints she may quit Cabinet

13 April 2012

Tony Blair believes Gordon Brown should consider standing down as Prime Minister rather than face the humiliation of defeat at the General Election, it was claimed last night.

Well-placed sources close to the former leader said he was shocked and dismayed at how badly Mr Brown has done since succeeding him last year.

Mr Blair is understood to believe it would be in Mr Brown’s best interests to ‘go with dignity’ if the alternative is being swept away in a Tory landslide.

Sources close to Tony Blair say he believes it is in Gordon Brown's best interests to go in the face of a potential Tory landslide

The latest blow to Mr Brown’s hopes of surviving came amid three other damaging developments.

First, Labour sources said Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has indicated she is ready to quit in a Cabinet reshuffle expected in the next few weeks.

Stand: Ruth Kelly is planning to resign instead of being sacked in a reshuffle

Stand: Ruth Kelly is planning to resign instead of being sacked in a reshuffle

Secondly, allies of ex-Cabinet Minister Charles Clarke said he launched his devastating attack on Mr Brown last week because he was fed up waiting for someone else to challenge the PM.

And thirdly, new evidence emerged of the continuing war between Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling over plans for a £40billion State-backed mortgage rescue scheme.

The disclosure that Mr Blair believes his successor should resign rather than be thrashed at the polls comes a month after The Mail on Sunday revealed how Mr Blair accused the Prime Minister in a secret memo of ‘dissing’ his record.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said last night that it was ‘rubbish’ to suggest he thought Mr Brown should leave No10 of his own accord.

But senior political sources in regular contact with the former Prime Minister insisted that he believed resignation was preferable to humiliation for Mr Brown in a General Election.

‘Tony takes no pleasure in seeing Gordon brought so low by a combination of factors, not all of them his fault,’ said the source.

‘Gordon has made mistakes but he’s been unlucky, too, and regardless of their past differences, Tony wanted him and the party to do well.

‘On present indications, it is likely that Labour is going to do disastrously at the next Election.

'That could have an appalling effect on Gordon, not just politically, but personally.

'Tony believes it may be better for him to stand down before the Election and let a new leader try to rebuild the party.

‘It would be bad for Gordon, but not nearly as bad as leading a tired and dispirited party through a gruelling Election campaign knowing that abject defeat is virtually guaranteed.


‘Gordon would never recover and doesn’t deserve it. Even his critics in the party would not want to see him go through that.’

Mr Blair’s view echoes that of Mr Clarke, who said last week that Mr Brown should do the 'honourable’ thing and resign to avoid the ‘utter destruction’ of the Labour Party at the next Election.

A senior Labour MP told The Mail on Sunday that the former Home Secretary spoke out because he was disappointed that Labour leadership contenders such as Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Health Secretary Alan Johnson had made no move against Mr Brown.

‘Charles said it was time people like Miliband and Johnson got on with it and if they didn’t then he would say something in public to get the ball rolling,’ said the MP.

Ms Kelly, 40, a member of the Catholic sect Opus Dei, appears to have anticipated the prospect of the sack in Mr Brown’s next reshuffle by telling friends she would rather leave the Cabinet than be switched to another job.

Such a move would make it easier for her to vote against the Government’s controversial Bill allowing embryos to be used for scientific research when
it returns to the Commons for approval in October.

If Ms Kelly remained in the Cabinet, she could be sacked for rebelling.

In addition, her 2,064 majority in her Bolton West seat is the smallest of any Cabinet Minister, making it highly likely she will lose it at the next Election.

Ms Kelly told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I am very happy being the Transport Secretary and a member of the Government. Reshuffles are a matter for the Prime Minister.’

There has been further heated discussions between officials from No10 and the Treasury over Mr Brown’s plan to tackle the housing crisis with a £40billion State-backed home loan proposal, which was first reported in The Mail on Sunday last week.

Treasury sources say the adverse public response to last week’s announcement by Mr Brown to cut stamp duty on some homes has led to extra pressure from No10 to go ahead with the £40 billion scheme.

But Treasury chiefs argue the scheme could be an expensive flop.

No10 say a final decision will be made when a report on the issue by former HBOS bank boss Sir James Crosby is completed later this month.

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