Lord Mandelson blames Nick Brown for bitter row
Jul 23 2010 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
LORD Mandelson has accused Gordon Brown’s closest confidant in the North East of worsening the rows at the heart of Downing Street.
In an interview with The Journal yesterday, Peter Mandelson explained the background behind a fierce row with Newcastle East MP Nick Brown.
In the city last night to promote his book The Third Man, he set out how he believes many of the former Prime Minister’s closest allies were unhelpful in the defensive approach they took to looking after Gordon Brown.
Nick Brown was one of Gordon’s closest colleagues in Government, and was rewarded with the chief whip position twice for his loyalty.
The former regional minister has made no secret of his pro-Gordon views and stands by the last Labour PM’s record.
But Lord Mandelson said such loyalty was not enough to ensure the smooth functioning of Government.
“We started out as good colleagues, as North East MPs. Relations went downhill, and then recovered, but that happens. It went downhill because he aligned himself very strongly with Gordon Brown and believed, in my view wrongly, that to be pro-Gordon you needed to be anti everyone else.
“That’s not, in my view, how things needed to be and should not have been.
“I think that the job of those around Tony and Gordon was to enable them to work well together throughout the time they were in Government. The relationship started off positively, but it went through a very bad period in 2003/04 after the Iraq war leading to Tony’s departure.
