UK News 30-09-2003 Brown Makes Play For Blair`s Job who: Gordon Brown what: Appeals to core "old" Labour values in keynote conference speech where: BOURNEMOUTH when: Yesterday snippet: "Chancellor Gordon Brown staked his claim to Tony Blair’s job yesterday by promising billions of pounds of extra state spending," says The Sun`s Trevor Kavanagh. "He set out his stall as a future Prime Minister in a barnstorming speech aimed at pleasing Labour`s socialist core." "Though he said nothing that watching Blairites could use to charge him with disloyalty," comments The Guardian, "the chancellor did say enough to make Mr Blair`s task harder this afternoon as he set out the contrasting priorities and tone that would mark the Brown administration that many MPs - and the opinion polls - now anticipate soon." "These reforms show that our economic strength didn’t just happen, we made it happen," Mr Brown told delegates at the Party conference in Bournemouth, referring to economic growth and rising employment figures during a speech which used the word Labour 64 times. "Labour values made it happen... Don’t ever let people tell you this happened because we were lucky, it happened because we are Labour." "Before his speech Mr Brown confirmed that he still wanted to become prime minister by refusing to endorse Mr Blair`s denial that they made a `deal` 10 years ago that he would take over," says The Telegraph. "Mr Blair said on Sunday that there had been no deal and that his memoirs were a long time away. But Mr Brown, questioned about a television programme on Sunday night claiming that he and Mr Blair had reached such an agreement after John Smith`s death in 1994, said he would never talk `about my private conversations with Tony Blair`." Meanwhile, The Independent focuses on the black hole of spending the chancellor faces if Britain does not get more support from its allies in the rebuilding of Iraq. Mr Brown "announced a £3bn special fund for the conflict in March," recalls political editor Andrew Grice. "Since then, the Government has refused to disclose how much has been spent or the cost of the operation," but analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) are suggesting that the money may have run out already. [... more]

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