Farewell to Cool Britannia

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister-in-waiting, was left surveying the wreckage.

But in London's Soho, Tony Blair's army of spin doctors and fixers who swept him to power were having a wild champagne party.

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The guests at Friday's "End of Cool Britannia" party, as many of those present had dubbed it, included some of the most controversial figures of the New Labour regime.

The venue was Soho House, the epitome of Nineties Britpop London - a private members' club that has attracted critical headlines about Class A drug use on its premises.

• Click here for a video profile of the Blair decade

Guest of honour was Alastair Campbell, the godfather of the New Labour class of '97.

While his "disciples" gulped champagne from the free bar, the teetotal former No10 spin doctor sipped sparkling mineral water as he gave a speech boasting how much money they had all made from New Labour.

He launched a bitter attack on the "twisted" media and, to roars of applause, he bragged: "We were there actually doing it."

He could not resist a jibe against Peter Mandelson, saying he had a "job share" with "the most evil man in Britain".

Campbell concluded by congratulating his former staff, who he said had gone off to make "millions" by setting up their own public relations firms, cashing in on the New Labour and Whitehall connections.

Later a disc jockey played D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better, Labour's campaign theme for their landslide victory of ten years ago.

Former Millbank press officers, some visibly in tears, punched the air and sang along.

Also at this most A-list of New Labour events was the scandal-hit Ruth Turner, the No10 Director of Government Relations who has been arrested in the cash for peerages police inquiry.

Jon McTernan, the Prime Minister's political secretary, also questioned by the Met, was there too.

Philip - now Lord - Gould, the opinion pollster and one of the founding fathers of New Labour, turned up in his trademark scruffy suit and open-necked shirt.

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Many of those present have prospered handsomely during the Blair decade.

In 1997 Tristram Hunt was a humble teaboy at Labour's Millbank HQ, now he is a hugely successful academic and television presenter dubbed the "Naked Historian" by the BBC.

Glamorous Gloria De Piero, then a junior party official from Bradford, is now a presenter on GMTV.

Tim Allan, who ten years ago was Mr Campbell's young "hitman", now runs his own multi-million-pound public relations company, whose clients include media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

David Hill, the bespectacled low-profile successor to Alastair Campbell, was there with his partner Hilary Coffman, who acts as spin doctor to Cherie Blair.

The event was policed by Mr Blair's formidable events manager Jo Gibbons, who physically ejected gatecrashers deemed to be "politically unsound".

One journalist for a Left-wing magazine, who was thrown out, said: "They run a party like they run their stage-managed media stunts."

One special adviser to a Cabinet Minister said: "It was still going at 1.30. There was a lot to drink, but I can't remember any misbehaviour."

Another guest said: "They were all Blair's people. They couldn't give a stuff for Gordon. In fact, some were pleased it was going so badly for him. They bear the scars of long battles with the Treasury."

Yesterday as the Blairites slept off their hangovers, Mr Brown - expected to be confirmed this week as Labour's next Prime Minister - was nowhere to be seen.

He has not made a single public appearance since Thursday's disastrous vote. However, a spokesman for the Chancellor insisted he was not sulking.

He said: "It would not be fair for Westminster politicians to intervene in the delicate negotiations that are taking place in Scotland.

"Rest assured, Gordon will be returning to take on the Tories in the Commons."