Brown ‘exploded’ when Blair refused to quit - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is believed to have exploded with rage when former Prime Minister Tony Blair backtracked on a pledge to stand down after the Iraq war. The allegation is made in the new book ‘The End Of The Party’ by British political journalist Andrew Rawnsley. Brown was also said to have sworn at Blair like a “belligerent teenager” after he learned that he would not be leaving 10 Downing Street in 2004. It describes the incident in November 2003, when at a dinner with Brown, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Blair was said to have made clear that he intended to step down. However, within months Blair had changed his mind, encouraged by his wife, Cherie, and closest political allies. Brown was said to have been stunned by the decision. “It all went suspiciously silent. Tony couldn't bring himself to tell Gordon directly,” The Scotsman quoted a senior aide to Brown, as saying. A member of Blair’s “inner circle” also described seeing a meeting in No 10 between the two men, saying: “Gordon was just losing it. He was behaving like a belligerent teenager. Just standing in the office shouting: ‘When are you going to f****** go?’” Some of Brown's supporters, including Ed Miliband, now Climate Change Secretary, were said to have regularly stormed round to No 10 to know why Blair had not already packed his bags.