Trio: Inside the Blair, Brown, Mandelson Project

Blair: charming, charismatic and a great communicator but undermined by an unshakeable conviction that he was right.

Brown: in private, warm and witty; in public, an authoritative Chancellor but a wooden and curiously un-self-confident Prime Minister.

Mandelson: for Blair, supreme courtier and chief adviser; for Brown, from arch-enemy to polished political life-saver.

No one is better placed to get the measure of these men and their often fraught relationship with each other than Giles Radice. An insider's insider who owed no particular allegiance to any of the trio, Radice charts their rise to power, including their undoubted achievements individually and collectively, and reveals the quarrels, vanities and failures which characterised their relations and undermined their agendas. His access to the trio and their different entourages provides a behind-the-scenes portrait of three men and their fluctuating relationships, who – for all their flaws – crafted a new politics for Britain.

News

7 September: Trio has been reviewed by the New Statesman. Read the review...

12 September: Giles Radice spoke to Sky News' Adam Boulton about the previous Labour government and the current leadership election.

13 September: Trio published. Giles signed copies of Trio and discussed the book at Waterstones in Durham and Newcastle. More details...

14 September: Launch of Trio at One Birdcage Walk, Westminster. View photos from the event.

27 September: Giles signed copies of Trio and spoke about the book at Waterstones in Manchester. More details...

26–30 September: Giles is attending this year's Labour Party Conference in Manchester, and will be giving us his reaction to the results of the Labour leadership election.

Launch Party

Trio was launched at a reception in Westminster, with figures such as Lord Falconer, Charles Clarke, Roy Hattersley, Adam Boulton and Polly Toynbee gathering to help Giles and I.B.Tauris celebrate. Click the image below to see a selection of photos from the event.

Trio Launch

Reviews

William Keegan, The Observer
"exquisitely balanced".

Philip Stephens, Financial Times
"A sharp new account of the rise and fall of New Labour".

New Statesman
"[Giles Radice] gets far closer to the truth about New Labour than most biographers and political commentators have". Read the full review...

An excerpt from Trio

"A key theme of this book is how the relationships between, Blair, Brown and Mandelson waxed and waned. Personal relations matter in politics, as elsewhere in life. When exceptionally talented, strong-willed politicians are able to combine together, then it is usually to the benefit of their party and of the nation. When their ambitions collide, it is almost always detrimental.

"The celebrated 1994 deal between Blair and Brown ensured Blair a clear and successful run at the leadership of the party, while promising Brown an exceptional role in both government and opposition, as well as hope for the succession. For a number of years, certainly until Labour’s second term, the partnership, though with a few upsets, worked well. Blair and Brown’s complementary skills and abilities, with the addition of Mandelson’s strategic direction, provided an unbeatable combination.

"However, between 2002 and 2005 and again in 2006, there were explosive rows, usually instigated by Brown, which undermined and weakened the government. The departure of Mandelson for Brussels was also a blow. The conflict between Blair and Brown was, to a considerable extent, a battle of egos, in which the two most powerful men in the New Labour government, aided and abetted by their respective entourages, jockeyed for political position. In his heart, Brown continued to believe, as it turned out mistakenly, that he was better qualified to be Prime Minister and kept pressing Blair to stand down; Blair, increasingly vulnerable because of Iraq, prevaricated. In September 2006, Blair was forced by a Brownite rebellion to announce publicly that he would go the following summer. In this way Brown got his turn at being Prime Minister for three years, before his government went down to defeat in the 2010 election.

"This is the story of New Labour, the Trio who created it and made it work and the central part which their relationships played in the successes and the failures of the project."

About the author

Giles Radice

The Rt Hon Lord Radice was Labour MP for Durham North and Chaiman of the powerful Treasury Committee until he became a Life Peer in 2001. His previous books include Offshore: Britain and the European Idea; Friends and Rivals: Crossland, Jenkins and Healey; Diaries: 1980–2001 (shortlisted for Channel 4 Political Book of the Year in 2004) and The Tortoise and the Hares: Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, Dalton, Morrison. He brings to his works the skills of an historian and the insights of a politician.

Buy the book

Trio