Blair-Brown deal

Encyclopedia : B : BL : BLA : Blair-Brown deal

The Blair-Brown deal, also known as the Granita Pact, is a shorthand term for a widely-held belief in British politics, that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown made a leadership pact after the death of Labour leader John Smith in 1994.

It is commonly believed that the 'deal' was agreed at the now-defunct Granita restaurant in Islington, London though this too has been debated.

In 2003, columnist Tom Brown told the BBC that Gordon Brown had informed him of the 'deal', nine years previously though stories relating to the event had circulated before.

In June 2003, The Guardian newspaper published a copy of a note that apparently confirms the existence of a pre-leadership-contest agreement between Blair and Brown, with Brown standing aside in favour of Blair in return for the pursuit of a 'fairness (i.e. socialist) agenda' under a Labour government.[link]

Supposedly, Gordon Brown would let Blair become Labour leader and run in the General Election. If Blair acquired the job of Prime Minister, he would stay in the job for an agreed period of time. He would then resign and hand the job over to Brown.

A fictional account of the pact is given the 2003 TV play The Deal

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.