TB v GB: Campbell reveals how Blair told Brown 'I'll stop you taking over'

Alastair Campbell's diaries give the first insider account of the rivalry, scheming and mistrust at the heart of New Labour.

They reveal that Blair explicitly warned his Chancellor to stop plotting against him - or he would stop him taking over as Prime Minister.

The first volume of the diaries, The Blair Years, covers events between 1994 - when Campbell was recruited as Blair's press secretary - and 2003, when he quit Downing Street.

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As early as November 1994, Campbell records that the new Labour leader considered installing Robin Cook as his Shadow Chancellor instead of Brown.

Over the next few years, the diaries record regular outbursts by Brown, who complains that he was 'never consulted' over policies.

By January 1997, Campbell claims Brown had ceased to refer to his former friend as 'Tony' and called him 'Blair' instead.

Blair and Brown - referred to as TB and GB throughout - even argued on the day Labour took power after 18 years in opposition on May 1.

"TB had a couple of bad-tempered conversations with GB," Mr Campbell writes.

"GB wanted to know all the junior ministerial positions he was planning, but some of the key ones he hadn't finally decided yet."

One of the most extraordinary passages describes the chaos which unfolded when Brown ruled out the possibility of Britain joining the euro during Labour's first term - without consulting Blair.

In his entry for October 17, Campbell reveals that he and Brown's special adviser Charlie Whelan leaked the story to The Times.

But when Blair saw the headlines, he got straight on the phone to Campbell and told him he knew nothing about the decision.

"I suddenly realised that because I had not really checked and double-checked with TB, we had briefed an enormous story on the basis of a cock-up," he wrote.

When Brown heard about the Prime Minister's reaction, he apparently started to backpedal. Campbell records: "GB was also now on the rampage, saying this had all gone too far, as if suddenly the headline he had been asking for was not what he had asked for at all."

In 1999, Blair is said to have feared the "TB/GB mischief could get out of hand... there were continuing arguments".

By 2001, the feud was so bitter that the Chancellor's aides thought Downing Street had timed massive bombing raids on Iraq to overshadow his speech to the Labour spring conference.

Campbell writes on February 17: "The media was totally dominated by Iraq. What coverage-there was for GB's speech was OK but his disciples seemed to think we had deliberately bombed Iraq as a way of minimising coverage. They really seemed to believe it too."

On December 19 that year, Blair and Brown had a "difficult" dinner at which the Prime Minister lectured his Chancellor on the qualities he needed to develop.

"TB had given him a pretty frank assessment of why he was generally thought to be an OK PM - because he had breadth, could deal with a stack of different things at once, and get on with a range of people," Campbell records.

"He told him he still believed he was easily the best person to follow him but he was not going to support him in circumstances where he felt he was being forced out."

Brown has poured scorn on the diaries - the first of a planned series - saying he has no intention of reading them.

But he is unlikely to be unable to ignore them, as one passage questions his claim that he knew nothing about Bernie Ecclestone's controversial donation to Labour.

The Formula 1 boss had donated £1million to the party before motor racing was exempted from a ban on tobacco sponsorship.

The Tories will seize on Campbell's claim that Mr Brown agreed a media strategy about the donation three days before he gave a radio interview suggesting he knew nothing about it.

Campbell clashed with Blair over religion in the wake of the Dunblane massacre, the diaries reveal.

The spin doctor asked his boss how he could believe in God, after a tour of the school where Thomas Hamilton murdered 16 pupils and their teacher in March 1996.

"He said just because the killer is bad, does not mean that God is not good."

However, Campbell advised Blair not to write an article on his beliefs for a Sunday paper.

"People knew he believed in God, if not perhaps how important it all was to him, but I could see nothing but trouble in talking about it."

'I bring you your first sex scandal'

Campbell recalls the moment when he heard that Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was having an affair with his secretary Gaynor Regan.

On August 1, 1997, he writes: "I got a message to call Phil Hall at the News Of The World.

"I said I hope you are not going to unleash a scandal while I am on holiday.

"He said no, I'm going to do it now. I said what? He said: "Robin and Gaynor"."

On hearing the paper had evidence of the affair, Campbell went to Blair and announced: "I bring you your first sex scandal."

They discussed whether Cook would have to resign --and whether they could replace him.

"TB and I then went round the entire Cabinet thinking of skeletons we either knew of, or could imagine.

"I said if you're not careful you'll be left with (Scottish Secretary Donald) Dewar and (Transport Minister Gavin) Strang."

The spin doctor managed to contact Cook, who was in a car on his way to Heathrow Airport to go on holiday with his wife Margaret. He told him that the affair would soon be made public.

"I could now hear Margaret chatting away happily in the background. I said are you sure you don't want to find a private phone. He said no, you speak and I will listen.

"I was, I must say, quite impressed at how cool he was."

Cook told his wife immediately and cancelled his holiday. The next day he announced he was leaving her for Gaynor, whom he married in 1998.

The couple were together until Cook's death in 2005, two years after he resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war.