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Brown faces flak over Chancellor appointment
Gordon Brown was hit by a fierce backlash on Monday over the prospect of promoting Ed Balls to be the new Chancellor.
- Agencies
- Published: 19:12 June 2, 2009
London: Gordon Brown was hit by a fierce backlash on Monday over the prospect of promoting Ed Balls to be the new Chancellor.
Senior Blairites warned that it would be "divisive" and make the Cabinet "unbalanced".
Their response threatened to derail the sweeping reshuffle to be held after this week's local and European elections.
With Alistair Darling looking doomed from the expenses scandal, MPs are convinced that the Prime Minister intends to replace him with the Children's Secretary.
Brown has for several weeks been rumoured to want his protege to take over the Treasury, seeing him as a more strategic and combative Chancellor.
One possibility is that it would be combined with promotion for Lord Mandelson to the Foreign Office, to be presented as a balanced set of promotions.
But both ministers and backbenchers warned him against giving the Treasury to one of his closest and most controversial allies, saying it would be a retreat from his original promise to have a big tent government.
One former minister said: "Gordon obviously rates Ed Balls highly but he must be careful that he does not leave the Cabinet unbalanced. That could be the effect if Ed ran the Treasury in the same way that he behaved when he was there as Gordon's special adviser."
Another MP said: "He would be a very unpopular choice. It would look like the Brown camp getting narrower and more powerful at the same time."
Brown is known to be planning a bold reshuffle that will see a string of figures caught up in the sleaze scandals leave their posts.
The Children's Secretary is his closest ally but is regarded with horror by Blairites who accuse him of briefing against them during the long battle for power between Brown and Tony Blair.
"If Gordon appoints Ed Balls as Chancellor then that's an absolutely terminal act," one ex-minister told the Times. "All hell will break loose."
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