Blair ready to quit in the spring

Toby Helm, George Jones and Rachel Sylvester / London Telegraph | June 28 2006

Tony Blair is ready to announce that he will step down next year, probably around his 10th anniversary in Downing Street in May.

Senior Blairite MPs said that high-level discussions were going on to prepare for a transition to an expected Gordon Brown premiership.

If Mr Blair announced a timetable at or shortly before Labour's annual conference at the end of September it would defuse the growing restlessness in the party over the succession.

Mr Blair could use the conference to acclaim his record while paving the way for a new leader to take on the challenge of the rejuvenated Conservative Party led by David Cameron.

Yesterday the Prime Minister brushed aside Charles Clarke's accusation that the Government was lacking leadership and direction.

He described the former home secretary as "a disappointed man" and rejected claims that the attack could hasten his exit from No 10.

He dismissed suggestions that the attack was Mr Clarke's "Geoffrey Howe moment", a reference to events that brought about Margaret Thatcher's downfall in 1990. He described it as "surface noise" that governments always faced.

"What we should do is just calm down, hold and get on with governing," he said.

Labour MPs feel certain that Mr Blair has made up his mind to go next spring. Everybody at No 10 believes that he will be gone within a year and acknowledges that power and authority is haemorrhaging away.

In the past week the Chancellor has openly assumed the mantle of prime minister-in-waiting, announcing the updating of the independent nuclear deterrent and reopening a European Union budget deal struck by Mr Blair last December that he regards as "bad" for Britain.

Mr Blair's inner circle hopes that when the Prime Minister makes clear his intention to go Mr Brown will back Blairite reforms and urge his supporters to stop trying to accelerate a takeover at No 10.

Mr Blair has admitted that it was a mistake to announce two years ago that he would not serve a fourth term and has been resisting naming a specific date for going because of fears that it would weaken his position further.

His supporters now think that it could be even more destabilising if he continues to keep his party guessing.

Some acknowledge that there is a risk he will become a lame duck, with pressure for him to go immediately once he has confirmed that he will step down next year.

But they think that Mr Brown and most MPs will go along with a leadership handover next year once Mr Blair has publicly confirmed his intentions.

At Westminster there was little sign of any heavyweight support for Mr Clarke, who used a series of interviews to make plain his anger over his dismissal as home secretary and suggested that Mr Blair might not be able to recover from recent blows to his authority.

Mr Clarke is the most senior Blairite to become publicly disloyal - and, even more significant, to begin the process of defecting to the Brown camp.

He effectively endorsed the Chancellor, a former sworn enemy, saying that he would be "happy" to see him installed as prime minister. Mr Brown has made clear that he would welcome Mr Clarke into a top domestic policy job in his first Cabinet.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said Mr Clarke's comments were "a Blairite equivalent of what Geoffrey Howe did to Margaret Thatcher all those years ago".

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said it was clear that the Prime Minister's authority was "simply draining away".

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said that Mr Blair had been right to sack Mr Clarke last month over the freed foreign prisoners scandal.

He suggested that Mr Clarke's attack on the Prime Minister and John Reid, his successor as Home Secretary, was the result of "disappointment" over losing his job.

No 10 pointedly referred to the "difficulties" that had emerged while Mr Clarke was at the Home Office - and "continued to emerge after he left it".

It is unusual for Downing Street to brief so heavily against a former minister. Officials said that Mr Blair had offered Mr Clarke several other Cabinet posts, which he had rejected.

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