Clarke launches new attack on 'control freak' Brown

The war over Labour’s succession in Britain flared back into life with a vengeance today, as former Home Secretary Charles Clarke launched a ferocious assault on the character of Gordon Brown.

Despite appeals from several Cabinet ministers to hold his tongue after branding Brown “absolutely stupid” yesterday, Mr Clarke used an interview in today’s Daily Telegraph to tear into the Chancellor’s character.

He painted a picture of a “control-freak” Brown who was unable to work with other people, lacked the courage to take tough decisions and was “deluded” about the nature of his relationship with Blair.

“He is totally, totally uncollegiate,” said Mr Clarke. “Can he change? That’s the question. Can he delegate?

“I am told by people in his Treasury team that he has delegated and can delegate. I have not seen it myself. From my own experience of dealing with student finance and ID cards, it was very, very difficult to work with him - very difficult indeed.

“It was the control-freak thing. His massive weakness is that he can’t work with people.”

Mr Clarke said that Mr Brown was labouring under the “delusion” that he could have beaten Blair for the Labour leadership if he had stood in 1994, when in fact he would have been “humiliated“.

His decision to stand aside for Blair then was not the only occasion on which Brown had “bottled it“, suggested Mr Clarke.

“He’s not a risk-taker, and that matters – you’ve got to be a risk taker in politics.

“As a Prime Minister, there are many things about which you can’t be certain. The easiest thing can be not to act, but what is not understood is that not to act brings costs as well.

“You can’t be cowed and worried. You can’t have endless reviews. You have to act. The courage question is a big thing for Gordon.”

Mr Clarke was previously seen as a close ally of the Prime Minister, but told the Telegraph he was “furious” to have been sacked by Mr Blair in May and denied he was “working in league with Tony Blair or Downing Street“.

But a close aide of Mr Brown said he believed a concerted effort was under way to block his succession to the leadership.

Leeds East MP George Mudie told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “I’ve been picking up tales that there’s going to be a series, a co-ordinated series, of such personal attacks on the Chancellor over the weekend.

“It looks like some of the Number 10 outriders, some of the other characters who’ve had grudges and things to say in the past but not the courage to say it are now sensing a moment.”

Mr Mudie warned that the attacks on Brown were “very bad for the party” and urged Mr Blair to speak out publicly to stop them.

Meanwhile, polls today threw doubt on the assumption that replacing Mr Blair with Mr Brown would provide a major electoral boost to Labour.

Just a third – 33% – of those questioned for The Guardian thought Mr Brown would be the leader best able to win the next general election for the party, against 52% who opted for “someone else“.

Meanwhile, a second survey for The Independent found that 70% of voters thought that whoever was picked as new Labour leader should seek a fresh mandate by calling a general election within a year.

Some 66% of those taking part in the Guardian poll said they wanted to see a contest for the Labour leadership, against just 25% who would be happy to see Mr Brown elected unopposed.

Mr Clarke questioned why Mr Brown appeared to be trying to close down debate about the party’s future policies ahead of the leadership changeover.

“Why should he have anything to fear from a discussion?” he asked. “Perhaps there is a psychological point... People who purport to lead the country have to be able to deal with these things.”

Mr Clarke compared the Chancellor unfavourably with the PM, describing him as a “perfectionist” who would want to run everything by “pulling levers from the centre“, while Mr Blair was more ready to trust people.

Mr Brown’s recent attempts to soften his image by declaring a love for the Arctic Monkeys and being seen watching the England football team on TV came across to voters as “slipperiness” because they did not reflect his true character, said Mr Clarke.

He repeated his criticism of the Chancellor for failing to step in and halt this week’s plotting.

But he insisted it was not too late for Mr Brown to win his support and that of Cabinet ministers who were “steaming” with anger at his behaviour this week.

The Chancellor must stop assuming that the leadership was his for the taking and start arguing his case and “explain what his vision is“, he sad.

Meanwhile Mr Blair will seek to calm nerves among Labour activists today with a speech to the left-wing think-tank Progress, in which he will urge them to stop “fretting” about the fact that the party is trailing David Cameron’s Conservatives in the polls.

An aide said he would assure activists that downturns in popularity were only to be expected for a party in the middle of its third term in office and New Labour should have the confidence that if it had the right ideas, the public would vote for it.

He is expected to warn hat the circumstances of 2007 will not be the same as those in 1997, when Labour won its famous landslide election victory.

The party will need “new progressive ideas” to tackle the new issues now facing Britain, such as security, migration, globalisation and the environment, he is expected to say.

Mr Blair had hoped to draw a line under speculation over his future with his announcement on Thursday and will shortly embark on a visit to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, The Times reported today that the letter sent by 15 MPs to Mr Blair this week urging him to stand down was originally intended to be one of three, to be followed by a delegation of ministers telling the PM his time was up.

The paper quoted an unnamed member of the supposed plot as saying that the intention had been to get Mr Blair out of Number 10 by today.