Mandelson urges Blair to stay on until 2008

London: Peter Mandelson, Labour's former spin doctor-in-chief, is playing a leading role in efforts to persuade Tony Blair to delay his departure as Prime Minister.

The European commissioner is at the head of a group of "ultra" Blairite advisers who want Blair to defy Gordon Brown by "playing the long game'' and not leaving Downing Street until 2008 at the earliest.

His intervention throws into chaos Labour's hopes of a "stable and orderly'' transfer of power between Blair and Brown next year.

Mandelson's dramatic comeback as a close adviser to Blair has infuriated the Chancellor's supporters, who want the Prime Minister to go by next summer, as well as other Labour MPs who greatly distrust the former Northern Ireland secretary.

Blair's inner circle is damagingly divided between the "ultra" faction, who want him to cling to power, and a group of "capitulators", who want talks on a handover to Brown to begin immediately.

Political foes

Three senior figures in the ultra camp Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, John Reid, the Home Secretary, and Alan Milburn, the former health secretary are understood to be planning to meet within days at Reid's central London home to plot the way ahead.

Reid is already, according to supporters of the Chancellor, canvassing support for a potential leadership challenge against Brown once Blair departs.

Mandelson, dubbed the "Prince of Darkness'' by his opponents, was controversially appointed to his £150,000-a-year Brussels job by Blair two years ago. His term of office is due to finish at the end of 2009 and Brown, if he is prime minister by that time, is unlikely to reappoint him.

The two are bitter political foes. Mandelson earned Brown's unstinting enmity on the death of John Smith in 1994 when, after purporting to be a supporter of the then shadow chancellor, he proclaimed Blair a better bet for leader because of his greater appeal to middle-class voters.

He went on to have a colourful Cabinet career, twice being forced to resign once as trade secretary over a home loan and once as Northern Ireland secretary over the Hinduja affair.