MPs say they will enforce Blair and Brown truce

Labour MPs vowed yesterday that they would take action to force Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to stick to their truce because they are worried that their bitter feud will erupt again before the general election.

Labour MPs vowed yesterday that they would take action to force Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to stick to their truce because they are worried that their bitter feud will erupt again before the general election.

Many Labour backbenchers fear that relations between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are so frosty that their hastily struck ceasefire will soon give way to another outbreak of damaging hostilities.

Concern that the feud could harm Labour's election prospects led to the warning delivered to Mr Blair and Mr Brown at Monday's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). The Prime Minister insisted that he had "got the message" and the Chancellor moved to heal the wounds yesterday by insisting that he trusted the Prime Minister - contradicting the claim in a new book about him, Brown's Britain.

At an awkward poster launch trumpeting Labour's economic record, Mr Brown appeared alongside Alan Milburn for the first time since the latter was appointed to Mr Brown's former role as Labour's general election chief in September. Relations between the Chancellor and Mr Milburn are in the deep freeze; Mr Brown regarded his recall to the Cabinet as a signal that Mr Blair wanted Mr Milburn rather than Mr Brown to succeed him as Prime Minister.

There is also tension between the Chancellor and the former health secretary over the contents of the Labour manifesto. Mr Milburn, like Mr Blair, wants an "unremittingly New Labour" programme to show the party has not run out of steam and prevent the election becoming a referendum on the Prime Minister.

But Mr Brown is cautious about promising a new raft of reforms to extend the role of the market into public services that are not carefully thought out. As the clear front-runner to succeed Mr Blair before the election after next, the Chancellor does not want to inherit what allies call "half-baked policies and gimmicks".

Despite yesterday's show of unity, Labour MPs are worried that the media will now view everything through the prism of the Blair-Brown rift, and that the image of a divided party will take hold with the public. "We are not prepared to see the party self-destruct," one MP said last night. "But there is a fear that things are so bad that we won't be able to paper over the cracks for very long."

Labour MPs, who fear that scores of marginal seats could be at risk, plan to set up a monitoring group to ensure that the party's two most powerful figures stop their acolytes from briefing against the rival camp.

Clive Soley, a former chairman of the PLP, threatened to start "naming and shaming" allies of Mr Brown and Mr Blair who fuel the row in future.

Monday's meeting in Commons committee room 14 was so packed that some ministers, including the loyal Blairite David Miliband, could not initially get in. As MPs squeezed in, John Prescott sat at the top table flanked by Mr Blair and Mr Brown. The Chancellor did not speak, and one Labour MP said: "Gordon's body language said it all. He seemed to be internalising it all and looked very uncomfortable."

Some MPs believe that the row, although damaging in the short term, has strengthened the Prime Minister's authority. "Gordon has had his wings clipped," admitted one Brown supporter.

Stephen Pound, MP for Ealing North, described aides from the rival camps who briefed the media as "lice". "It is utterly irresponsible, it has got to stop and it can't go on," he said. "A party that is split does not win elections. It is not doing them any good, it is not doing the party any good. But most of all it is not doing the people of this country any good."

* The former cabinet minister Jack Cunningham said yesterday that he will stand down as an MP at the next election. Mr Cunningham, 64, has represented the constituency now known as Copeland since 1970. Tony Blair said he was "a huge figure in the Labour Party and a close and valued personal friend".