Brownites want Blair to pay price for poll defeat

Senior members of Gordon Brown's camp want Tony Blair's resignation to be announced within 24 hours of a Labour meltdown in the local elections.

The Prime Minister and Gordon Brown put on a show of unity when they appeared on a joint platform yesterday to launch Labour's local election campaign for 3 May.

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But the Chancellor's key supporters privately believe anti-Blair feeling is so high on the doorsteps that the Prime Minister will face calls on 4 May to announce his resignation, if Labour loses the Scottish Parliament, the Wales Assembly and town halls across England.

"It is far worse on the doorsteps than it was 12 months ago, and it's not just Iraq that is doing the damage," said one minister. "The feeling against Tony is so strong we can't afford to wait around. He may want to stay on a bit longer, but things will move quickly."

Mr Blair has told his allies he wants to delay any announcement about his departure until 9 May, the day after the Northern Ireland peace process is completed with the resumption of power-sharing between Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party in the Stormont Assembly.

Mr Blair sees the Northern Ireland agreement as one of the key "legacy" issues he wants to see completed before he leaves. Mr Blair's supporters will argue that he deserves the right to stay to hand over power in a calmer atmosphere. They are keen to avoid the impression that Mr Blair is being hounded out of office after a massive defeat.

But close allies of Mr Brown are impatient for the handover and said that the Prime Minister-in-waiting will need all the time he can get to repair the damage.

There will be a seven-week delay while the deputy leadership contest takes place but it is clear that unless there is a challenger for the leadership, Mr Brown's supporters want him to take over as de facto Prime Minister immediately after the local elections.

They resent the implication that the Chancellor would not have been able to secure the Northern Ireland peace deal if he had taken over power last September as the Brown camp wanted.

The Chancellor's crib sheet revealed

You might think a politician as experienced as Gordon Brown could handle a press conference without the need for notes or crib sheets. Evidently not.

As he joined the Prime Minister yesterday for the launch of Labour's local election campaign in Scotland, the Chancellor needed a typed sheet to remind him that: "Tony Blair has always agreed with me in the difficult decisions I have had to take and I have always agreed with him."

An aide who typed the notes for Mr Brown posed the question: "What does this say about your style of decision-making?"

It was left to the Chancellor to fill in his handwritten answer - "I am happy to be judge by record [sic]" adding "I have reflected. I have analysed."

Mr Brown's untidy scrawl, which included words that are illegible to anyone but him, and included block capitals, will be a gift to graphologists, who will doubtless find evidence of inner tension and a need to justify himself.

Andy McSmith