Downing Street shrugs off media rumor about Blair-Brown rift

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, November 08, 2003

Downing Street shrugs off media rumor about Blair-Brown rift

Downing Street shrugged off Friday media rumors of a worsening rift between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

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Downing Street shrugged off Friday media rumors of a worsening rift between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

The pair were reported to have held talks over dinner Thursday night after Brown disclosed on TV on Thursday that he had asked Blair for a seat on the National Executive Committee (NEC) to plan Labor's next general election campaign but had been rejected.

Local media immediately described Brown's decision to air his grievance publicly as an "act of war" on Blair.

However, a No. 10 spokeswoman insisted Friday that the relationship between the pair remained "strong" and stressed there was nothing unusual in the two dining together.

"We have nothing more to add to what we said yesterday (Thursday)," she told reporters.

Earlier on the day, Jack Cunningham, a former Labor cabinet minister, urged Blair and Brown to pull together.

"With a new Tory leader and apparently new unity in the Conservative Party, we face a very different set of circumstances ... We have got to make sure the Labor Party and Labor government is united," he told BBC radio.

But fellow former minister Barbara Roche said: "It is ridiculous that Gordon Brown is not on the NEC" which is Labor's ruling body.

Brown "ran the elections in 1997 and 2001, clearly to great effect and it seems strange and petty that he is now being left out," she said.

Brown is widely seen as the second most powerful politician in Britain after Blair and also Blair's strongest rival.

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