Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

THE new biography of Gordon Brown has exposed the deep split at the heart of the New Labour government for all to see.

It makes clear that the Chancellor considers himself betrayed by Tony Blair over his successful pre-emptive strike to win the Labour leadership.

Mr Brown considers that he and Mr Blair had a deal not to stand against each other in the event of the late John Smith's death.

He interpreted that as meaning that the younger man would stand aside and allow him to accede to the Labour leadership.

Sadly for him, Mr Blair did not - and neither did a significant body of opinion on the modernising wing of the party.

While Mr Brown was grieving the death of his friend and mentor, Mr Blair and his advisers moved swiftly. Mr Brown delayed, confirming their belief that he was an indecisive ditherer.

They took the view that Mr Blair was best placed to win the contest and the subsequent election. That fixer-in-chief Peter Mandelson aligned himself with Mr Blair instead of throwing himself into leading Mr Brown's drive for the job compounded the sense of betrayal.

The then Shadow Chancellor did not speak to the Hartlepool MP for two years and even now relations are clearly strained.

Paul Routledge's "Gordon Brown: The Biography" makes clear that the resentment still rankles, even though Labour are in government and Mr Blair is Prime Minister.

The revelation on Wednesday that while the Chancellor did not supply the juicy bits about the leadership challenge and his disappointment, Chief Whip Nick Brown did is a staggering one. It shows that the split is more than just personal between two men who are now neighbours in Downing Street but a deep fault line between two camps.

Nick Brown is a leading "Friend of Gordon" (or FOG as the Chancellor's allies are known at Westminster) and was working with the explicit approval of his mentor.

That he was prepared to talk on the record to Mr Routledge - a long-term friend of the Chancellor's abrasive spin-doctor Charlie Whelan - is remarkable testament to the feeling of invulnerability of this group.

It is clear that neither Gordon nor Nick Brown fear retaliation from the Prime Minister. Even the showdown meeting at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon held no terrors for the Chancellor. His network of FOGs stretches into every department and they work tirelessly for their boss and he for them.

But the Blair camp are furious. They have long felt that the Chancellor and his team are running amok.

Indeed, they have pressed for Mr Whelan to be sacrificed to teach his boss a lesson.

One senior figure and Blair insider was spitting blood on the issue: "This is another example of Gordon Brown and his friends running out of control. This is damaging to the Labour Party. The fact is only Tony could win the election.

"The problem is that Tony feels sorry for Gordon and lets him get away with it. Gordon is a little boy - he's being petulant and should grow up. If I was his mother, I would smack his bottom."

But it is clear the the Chancellor considers himself the six foot teenager more than capable of giving Dad Tony a thrashing if push comes to shove. As one in the Brown camp put it: "The first person to ask Gordon to step outside might be in for a shock."

This is very disturbing news for Mr Blair and Labour. To have such a decisive personal split so early in their five-year-term is a serious matter.

The fact that there is an ideological divide underpinning this animosity makes it worse. Mr Brown's camp consider him to be the holder of the real Labour torch and Mr Blair to have little rooting in the traditions of the Labour movement.

Mr Blair's supporters consider Mr Brown to remain hidebound by those traditions and lacks the free-thinking vision to complete the modernisation process he spuriously claims to be the driving force behind.

Splits between Prime Ministers and Chancellors are what destroy them and their governments - ask Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe, Margaret Thatcher, Kenneth Clarke and John Major for recent evidence.

For their own sakes and that of the fledgling administration they now lead, Mr Brown and Mr Blair would do well to have a good scrap in the Downing Street garden and then shake and make up like good schoolboys do.

If not there could be real blood and tears before long.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.