Whatever it Takes: The Real Story of Gordon Brown and New Labour

Clegg’s negotiating team signalled clearly which way he was heading. David Laws had been wooed several times by the Conservatives in the hope he would defect. Danny Alexander was in effect Clegg’s representative. Chris Huhne was part of the generation of Liberal Democrats that yearned for power, and had told friends before the campaign that it would be impossible for the Liberal Democrats to make a deal with Labour if the government had lost its overall majority. Although instinctively more of a social democrat than Laws and Clegg, he had made the leap towards working with the Conservatives before a single vote had been cast. He wanted power.

In Number Ten power was an issue too. Two forces came together on the Friday afternoon, a Blairite-Brownite assumption that Labour should do whatever it took to retain power and the ultra-Blairite hunger for realignment on the centre left. Brown, Balls, Ed Miliband, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson had been conditioned to fight for power, having been removed from it for so long in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time Adonis in particular had yearned for realignment on the centre left. All of them were dreaming with different reasons and varying degrees of enthusiasm of a Lib/Lab coalition. At one point over the weekend Mandelson joked that ‘Andrew has been waiting since 1906 for this moment to arrive.’ They were not giving up now. In spite of Brown’s public words earlier that he understood the right of Cameron and Clegg to seek agreement, Mandelson and Campbell urged Brown to speak to Clegg that evening in order to make clear that he was deadly serious about a Lib/Lab coalition.

Late on Friday afternoon Brown and Clegg spoke, each of them exhausted and instinctively wary of the other. Clegg did not welcome the call, regarding it as a diversion when the talks with the Conservatives had not properly begun. Brown’s people-management skills were dreadful even when he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Rarely in his career had he prevailed by intoxicating charm. His preferred approach was to put a relentless, unswerving case complete with warnings about the consequences of moving in a different direction to the one he had espoused. With Clegg, he tried his best in his formulaic opening: ‘Nick, how’s it going … have you had much sleep?’ But the polite formalities were brief.

Quickly Brown made clear that Labour would offer a referendum on electoral reform as its top priority. A Lib/Lab coalition would be united in its support. To Brown’s annoyed dismay, Clegg showed limited enthusiasm. He told Brown that he thought there were insuperable obstacles in terms of the parliamentary arithmetic and political legitimacy if the parties that came second and third formed a government, but he acknowledged the Lib Dems had more in common with Labour than the Conservatives. The two were speaking blindly, having spent the preceding hours acquiring wholly different mindsets. Clegg had been enthused by Cameron. Brown had become increasingly excited by his conversations with Adonis in particular about a Lib/Lab coalition. Characteristically, Brown did not give up, pointing out to Clegg that his party would find it far easier working with Labour. To Clegg’s sleepless fury Brown suggested that the Lib Dems would not tolerate an arrangement with the Conservatives, especially when Labour was holding out the historic chance to change the voting system. Brown could not hide his frustration. He never could, whether in cabinet meetings, in one-to-one sessions with Blair, or during long-winded international gatherings. For a calculating politician, Brown was also surprisingly transparent.

As far as Clegg was concerned Brown had been too transparent. One of Clegg’s team briefed the BBC that the call had been bad-tempered. Evidently they wanted to signal to their party that a route towards Labour was fraught with difficulties. If Clegg had felt instinctively more solicitous towards Brown he would have controlled his annoyance. He did not bother to do so.

At which point the media, a pivotal element in the entire New Labour saga, played its part in one final decision. Since the early hours of Friday morning some newspapers had screamed that Brown appeared determined to ‘squat’ in Number Ten. In fact until a new government could be formed he had a constitutional duty to remain in place. But in order not to look like a trespassing obsessive, Brown left Number Ten on the Saturday morning to spend the weekend in his constituency. Briefly he left the heart of the government’s operation when there was still much to do, not least in speaking to Labour MPs about the plans for a coalition. He did spend much of his time on the Saturday when he was in Scotland speaking to union leaders in order to get their support for what he was doing. He still had a hold of a sort over them. No union leader spoke out against a Lib/Lab coalition in the days that followed.

While Brown spoke to union leaders, Adonis contacted his friends in the Liberal Democrats, those with whom they had discussed for years the possibility of realignment. His conversations with Ashdown were especially fruitful. Adonis argued with his engaging modest conviction – an approach to politics and journalism that had captivated Roy Jenkins more than a decade earlier – that the parliamentary arithmetic did not rule out a Lib/Lab coalition. With patient persistence he pointed out that a Lib/Lab government would have 315 seats compared with 306 for the Conservatives. Although this was not an overall majority it was safe to assume that the assorted nationalists would not bring down the coalition in alliance with the Tories. Adonis made it clear that Brown was not necessarily proposing a ‘rainbow coalition’ with several other minority parties, as the media continued to report, but a Lib/Lab government that would rule at least long enough to introduce electoral reform.

Ashdown started to sway towards such an arrangement. Three other former leaders, Ming Campbell, Charles Kennedy and David Steel, also indicated privately or in Steel’s case publicly that they would prefer an arrangement with Labour. Adonis also had considerable influence on Tony Blair. Brown had spoken to Blair on the Friday and noted his scepticism about the feasibility of a Lib/Lab coalition because of the parliamentary arithmetic. Over the weekend Blair became more supportive of the idea.

In every frenzied conversation involving Adonis, Mandelson and senior Liberal Democrats, the position of Brown was raised as an overwhelming obstacle. Clegg had stated during the campaign that he could not do a deal with a defeated Brown. Over the weekend Ashdown told Adonis the same. A close ally of Clegg’s, Neil Sherlock, who had spent as many hours as Adonis contemplating a realignment on the centre left, also made it clear that no deal could be done with Brown continuing for any length of time as Labour’s leader. Vince Cable spoke directly to Brown several times over the weekend. The two were old friends. Cable retained a certain limited respect for Brown and the two of them shared a fair amount of common political ground, at least in relation to economic policy. He gave a much stronger indication than Clegg that he would prefer to work with Labour, an appetite heightened perhaps by the fact that he was not part of the Liberal Democrats’ negotiating team and had in Brown’s view been deliberately marginalized by Clegg. At one point Cable told Brown: ‘Emotionally I’m closer to Labour.’

Cable’s final call to Brown was at six in the morning on the Monday. He told him that his departure was an essential condition to a deal. This was not expressed as an ultimatum. Cable knew that Brown was willing to resign in order to facilitate a deal. His call was merely confirmation that in order to open the door for serious negotiation a public declaration was necessary. Clegg had made the same point in his discussions with Brown, although he had not promised that negotiations would open as a result.

Brown took no persuading. Adonis, who had never worked closely with him, least of all in an atmosphere of nerve-racking intensity, was impressed and surprised by his resolute determination. Brown was ready to announce his resignation and had informed Clegg of his willingness to do so in a one-to-one meeting on the Saturday morning. The only issue was over precisely when. Cable had suggested the key moment would be after the meeting of Liberal Democrat MPs that would take place early on Monday afternoon.

Brown met Clegg again at the Commons on the Monday morning and was even more direct: ‘Policies are not the issue between us – we are agreed on most issues. I am sure we could form a Progressive Alliance between us. I genuinely believe it could work … If it increases the possibility of forming a Progressive Alliance, I am prepared to stand aside as Labour leader.’

While Brown, Campbell and Mandelson composed a statement late on Monday morning, the group they regarded as their ace card, Clegg’s MPs, expressed concern at a formal deal with the Conservatives at their private meeting. The nature of the discussion at the meeting of the Liberal Democrats’ parliamentary party focused less on what the negotiating team had brought back from their discussions with the Tories and more on the need to find out what Labour had to offer as an alternative route. Several MPs, including their former leader, Sir Ming Campbell, argued that realignment on the centre left had been the party’s great mission and this was not the way to bring it about. Clegg replied openly wondering whether the reservations were generational, and to some extent geographical, with a lot of the concerns coming from older Scottish Liberal Democrats.

The meeting broke up with an announcement that the negotiating team would seek ‘clarification’ on some issues with their Conservative counterparts. The term was a euphemism that allowed the two wings of the Liberal Democrats to play for time. As far as David Laws was concerned, clarification related to a few minor details in relation to the pupil premium, a policy that united both parties. The social democratic wing had growing hopes that in the space still left a deal could be reached with Labour.

At which point Brown played his card. Those who were with him as he prepared to announce his resignation were struck by his calm. Brown could erupt angrily over trivial matters and remain focused when the political temperature reached boiling point. Speaking outside Number Ten, he seemed fleetingly to have changed the dynamics of British politics once more:

Mr Clegg has just informed me that while he intends to continue his dialogue that he has begun with the Conservatives, he now wishes also to take forward formal discussions with the Labour Party. I believe it is sensible and it’s in the national interest to respond positively. There is also a progressive majority in Britain, and I believe it could be in the interests of the whole country to form a progressive coalition government. I would however like to say something also about my own position. If it becomes clear that the national interest, which is stable and principled government, can be best served by forming a coalition between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats then I believe I should discharge that duty, to form that government, which would in my view command a majority in the House of Commons in the Queen’s speech and any other confidence votes. But I have no desire to stay in my position longer than is needed to ensure the path to economic growth is assured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward quickly. The reason that we have a hung parliament is that no single party and no single leader was able to win the full support of the country. As leader of my party I must accept that that is a judgement on me. I therefore intend to ask the Labour Party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election.

This was becoming the equivalent of an epic centre court final at Wimbledon, with Brown the veteran competing against two younger, rising stars. Brown had responded to Cameron’s statement on Friday with one that was crafted with the same level of political artistry, a stunning return to Cameron’s beautifully played stroke. Yes, Brown would be going. No, he would not be going quite yet – an echo of Blair’s resignation statement in September 2006. Brown had highlighted two priorities, the economy and political reform. He was looking for a graceful exit, one that would bristle with historic possibilities as he left in place a progressive coalition, but he was realistic enough to realize that he could play no part in the medium-term future. He had recognized this, or almost had, for a long time.

After Brown’s statement some of the key figures in Number Ten rushed out to proclaim the new progressive opportunity. Adonis, Douglas Alexander (who never really believed that this was a progressive opportunity) and Alastair Campbell toured the studios to put the case for a Lib/Lab coalition. Brown sat back and watched, his career almost over whatever happened next.

What did happen next revealed quite a lot about Clegg, his favoured Liberal Democrats and parts of the Labour party. The first meeting between Labour’s negotiating team and the Lib Dems’ equivalent had been fairly informal on the Saturday afternoon. Labour’s team consisted of Adonis, Mandelson, Balls, Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman. During that meeting they sensed that the Lib Dems were moving towards Labour. Mandelson was certain throughout that they were playing Labour along to get more from the Conservatives, but the others dared to wonder, and with mixed feelings, whether they were about to begin a fourth term in partnership with the Lib Dems. Before the cabinet meeting on the Monday afternoon, Balls was with Brown when he got another call from Clegg. By that point Clegg appeared to be moving fast towards Labour. He said to Brown that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were the two progressive forces and were therefore natural partners. By late Monday afternoon Brown and Balls were briefly convinced that a deal was on. Early on Monday evening Brown chaired his final cabinet meeting. No one knew for sure that this would be the end. Quite a few assumed now that Brown would be Prime Minister until the autumn. Brown also thought for a few hours this was likely.

No cabinet minister spoke out overtly against a Lib/Lab coalition, although several had intense private doubts, in particular Jack Straw. Brown talked through the situation with considerable enthusiasm showing none of the bad-tempered lack of patience he could display when chairing cabinet meetings in less tempestuous times.

The Labour and Lib Dems’ negotiating teams met immediately after the cabinet, so quickly that ministers had no time to discuss in advance what they would be willing to concede. In the event they offered to move at least as far as the Conservatives, especially in the area of civil liberties, a policy area where the government had acquired a ragbag of policies, adopted for reasons of neurotic insecurity rather than principled machismo. The policies had never been fully supported by anyone on Labour’s negotiating team. Perversely, a sticking point in the discussions was Labour’s commitment not to start cuts in public spending until the following year. Even though the Lib Dems had argued for the same policy in the election campaign, David Laws was now insisting that immediate cuts should be part of the package. Chris Huhne also called for immediate legislation on the Alternative Vote followed by a wider referendum on other options for electoral reform. Even Adonis was taken aback at such a prospect. Huhne suggested ‘this would be an experiment in an experimental coalition’. Although Labour’s team was much more wary after this meeting, they assumed that Clegg was sincere in his willingness to do a deal and agreed to meet again on the Tuesday morning. Labour’s team also proposed a separate meeting between Cable and Alistair Darling.

Hungry for power almost as an end in itself, Cameron and Osborne rushed out a new offer in response to Labour’s moves, a referendum on the Alternative Vote. This was the same as Labour was offering in relation to electoral reform, although Labour was committed to campaigning for the change whereas the Conservatives were opposed. The duo had spent the last four years seeking a route to power, changing economic policy on the basis of the latest focus-group findings and proclaiming their party’s modernization without changing many of the assumptions and polices that they had inherited. Cameron and Osborne opposed voting reform, but their desire for power meant they did not hesitate to make the offer.

Their move was decisive. When Clegg got the news, a few minutes before it was released to the media, his mind was more or less made up. He wanted to do a deal with the Conservatives and take part in a formal coalition. He had never had much doubt. Later Clegg was hailed for his ruthless negotiating techniques, but he did not have to try very hard. Both sides were desperate for a deal and at times he had been genuinely torn, not least because Ashdown had moved some distance over the weekend towards Labour, and his other former leaders – Charles Kennedy and David Steel – had always been keener on a deal with Labour.

But Clegg was reaching a firm decision on Monday evening and acquired ammunition from former cabinet ministers David Blunkett and John Reid who led the charge against a Lib/Lab coalition. Reid spoke out passionately against an arrangement. In fact Labour was not proposing a formal arrangement with the SNP, only with the Lib Dems, but Reid was not one to allow details to intervene. Blunkett was far more perceptive and his opposition carried more weight. The left of the Labour party started to speak out as well. On the other side Cameron faced similar problems with the right of his party, but Clegg had found his soulmate, two pragmatic leaders bound by their hostility towards the state and their capacity for polite, almost apolitical negotiations.

The dynamics revealed much about Labour’s diminished hunger for power. Reid and Blunkett had been cabinet ministers. Straw had served in the cabinet from 1997 to the very end. If they had been eager for their first ministerial posts their reaction to the result might have been very different. Sated personal ambition played a part in the cries within Labour against a Lib/Lab coalition.

On the Tuesday morning Brown and Clegg had one further meeting, but Labour’s negotiating team sensed they were being played along. The Lib Dems had briefed misleadingly that Labour’s team had been aggressive in the negotiations, especially Ed Balls. Adonis, no natural ally of Balls, was adamant that Balls behaved politely throughout. Labour’s team sensed trouble, assuming the briefing was aimed at showing Ashdown and others that they had tried but faced immovable objects. Brown, who had been in some ways the most enthusiastic for a coalition, moved from high hope on Monday night to pessimism by Tuesday morning. Still he clung to a shred of optimism. At midday, hours before his resignation, he had a phone call with Sir Ming Campbell, spelling out in detail how the mechanisms were in place for a Lib/Lab coalition and how he had prepared for the appointment of Lib Dems in senior departments.

During a phone call with Brown early in the afternoon Clegg was evasive. ‘Look, I’m not in a position to give you a definitive answer,’ he told Brown. ‘I want to continue to speak to both sides. Coalition talks take a long time in other countries. There’s nothing unusual about this. Why the hurry?’

Brown responded: ‘The country will not understand if this ambiguity continues. The public needs certainty and we must provide an answer.’ He issued one last plea to Clegg: ‘I am convinced this is the right time to create a Progressive Alliance. I know the electoral arithmetic is difficult but I think there is a way round that.’

Clegg fudged again: ‘I still want to go on talking to both sides.’

Brown struggled to hide his frustration as he replied: ‘I have to go the Palace soon. If you are not prepared to commit yourself you have to tell me. Now.’

Clegg: ‘I will call you back in five minutes after I’ve talked to my advisers.’

After Brown put the phone down, he discussed his next move with Mandelson, Campbell, and old cabinet allies Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander. They knew it was over. One observer noted: ‘We all agreed it could not go on any longer. It was obvious Clegg wasn’t serious about doing a deal. He was using it so he could go back to Cameron and get more out of him. We didn’t have the numbers and the Labour Party just wouldn’t wear it.’

Brown had made one big mistake in the four days. He had failed to summon Labour MPs for an early meeting in order to keep them fully informed. As a result they felt excluded and ignorant and began to express public wariness to a deal. Seen widely as a Labour tribalist, Brown had given little thought to the tribe as he planned a realignment on the centre left more dramatic than any plan contemplated by Tony Blair. By Tuesday mid-afternoon Brown knew that there would be no deal: he would be out of power within hours.

After three years of erratic, frail authority he decided to seize full control of his departure, with the help of Mandelson and Campbell, the great choreographers and manipulators of the New Labour era. As was often the case with the misunderstood duo, they were motivated by humane considerations as they planned a final move. Politicians are human beings, as fearful of public humiliation as anyone else. They had helped ease the way for a small army of ministers. Now the game was over for Brown, for them and for Labour. They wanted to help Brown to leave with dignity. Brown spent much of the day writing letters to friends and colleagues, thanking them for their support, a generous gesture made with no ulterior motive.

Brown also wrote the final version of his farewell speech, including a reference to his own personal failings, although others had encouraged him to part with a hint of humble self-awareness. With Sarah, Mandelson arranged the perfect visual departure in which finally their two sons John and Fraser would join them in the public eye as they left Number Ten for the last time, a humanizing image that had eluded Brown when he sought to cling to power.

In one final phone call Clegg had begged Brown to stay on for a little longer while he resolved what to do. Brown refused at first and then appeared to waver a little. Mandelson grabbed a card and wrote in big bold letters: ‘No More Time!’ He ostentatiously placed the card in front of Brown. There was no more wavering. Brown had also spoken to Blair again on the phone, explaining that he had given up hope of a deal. One way or another they were all there at the end as they had been at the beginning, Blair, Brown, Campbell and Mandelson. For all the mighty rows and fallings-out, they almost needed to be there for those final moments. When Mandelson had resigned from the cabinet for the first time he turned to Brown to help him compose his resignation letter even though Brown and his allies had brought about his downfall. Although Blair had kept Brown out of Number Ten for as long as possible, Brown turned to him for advice in his final days and Blair was happy to offer it.

Brown completed his call to Clegg insisting he had already decided to see the Queen to resign. ‘I can’t go on any longer, Nick, I’m going to the Palace.’

A resigned Clegg replied: ‘If that’s your decision …’ Brown said: ‘It is.’ He called Sarah and his sons John and Fraser to his office, hugged his Downing Street team and walked out of Number Ten with his family for the last time.

Before leaving he uttered the only speech he had given for more than two decades that had no complicated calculations behind it, no move on a chessboard:

Only those that have held the office of prime minister can understand the full weight of its responsibilities and its great capacity for good.

I have been privileged to learn much about the very best in human nature and a fair amount too about its frailties, including my own.

Above all, it was a privilege to serve. And yes, I loved the job not for its prestige, its titles and its ceremony – which I do not love at all. No, I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more democratic, more prosperous and more just – truly a greater Britain.