Westminster blog

Alastair Campbell’s diaries have numerous references to Gordon Brown’s dislike of Peter Mandelson and vice-versa:

“TB (Tony Blair) also spoke to Peter M and said he wanted him to meet GB tonight and sort a few things out. He said if they did not work together he would have to take drastic action, because he was not prepared to let them bring the whole show down.”

“I said the real bane of TB’s life was GB and Peter’s inability to get on.”

“Once we had arrived at Bournemouth (conference) we had a session on the speech and agreed to restructure it. We had a very good laugh when we imagined what it would be like to go out and deliver a truth speech – Conference, Gordon and Peter really do hate each other.”

“TB said he reckoned that in our own very different ways, GB, Peter M and I were geniuses, the best in our fields at what we did, and the key to his strategy. But it drove him mad that we couldn’t get on…..he said when he was on the way up, the three of them could not have been closer. GB was strategy, he gave it intellectual context, PM was delivery. They were brilliant together. I said it doesn’t mean you can recapture it now.”

Separately…

Tom Bower’s biography of Gordon Brown (yes it is somewhat sensationalist) described difficult relations between the chancellor and Mr Mandelson: “Their conversations were fraught…Their conversations ranged repeatedly over the same ground: loyalty, dependability and trust. ‘I love you, but I can destroy you,’ Mandelson frequently screamed, threatening to marshal his black arts against Brown.”