Labour stalwart savages Blair

Lady Castle says Mr Blair wants to "divide and rule"

Tony Blair has been charged with the "deliberate destruction" of cabinet government in an outspoken attack by former Labour minister Barbara Castle.

She also accuses the prime minister of being presidential and not giving a "damn" about bread and butter domestic issues such as transport.

He doesn't give a damn about transport in Britain, he's too busy looking at the world panorama

Lady Castle

The Labour Party stalwart says the government is run on principles of divide and rule with policies favoured by the prime minister "railroaded" through the cabinet.

The criticisms come in an interview for BBC Radio 4's the Westminster Hour, to be broadcast on Sunday at 2200GMT.

In it Lady Castle, who was social services secretary in Harold Wilson's government, warns that Mr Blair's Achilles heel is his "self-love".

She goes on: "We've talked about the constitutional reforms that are taking place under this government, the biggest and most glaring is the deliberate destruction of cabinet government and I think that's a source of great weakness."

Apathy warning

Lady Castle has issued occasional criticisms of Tony Blair and New Labour since it came to power in 1997, most notably over government policy towards pensioners.

A year before June's general election she warned of "desperately dangerous" apathy amongst core Labour supporters across the country, but this is her most vigorous and personal attack on Mr Blair so far.

Lady Castle recalls hearing the prime minister explain how he planned to "manage" his cabinet.

The thing about Tony is that he is always trying to follow what he thinks public opinion wants

Lady Castle

An admirer of Margaret Thatcher's methods, Lady Castle says, Mr Blair wanted to "take her sort of methods of divide and rule".

That meant no one putting forward a policy to cabinet until the prime minister had drawn up their own version and discussed it with the minister and the departmental civil service head.

An agreement would be thrashed out between the three "and then they railroaded it through cabinet".

'Wrong priorities'

"You can't have a successful government, certainly as far as any change in the social order or domestic scene is concerned, if you're going to tidy it up like that," Lady Castle says.

She echoes often-repeated Conservative complaints that Mr Blair is too in thrall to public opinion, saying that "he gets himself landed with the wrong priorities because he's not thinking it out for himself from the basis of principle".

A "glaring example", she says, is the "neglect" of transport as the government concentrates on the badly needed improvements to schools and the health service.

Commenting that "he's a great crusader is our Tony", Lady Castle denies suggestions that the prime minister lacks vision - but says it is "a very self-centred vision".

'Presidential type'

"If you think he's going to be satisfied for very long with just a stage the size of Britain you're wrong.

"I think he is a presidential type. He is not a democratic prime minister of the British type that we're used to, having to work through parliament and cabinet."

He wants his way "and the biggest stage possible", she goes on, and would take advantage of any opportunity in Europe "or even in the States".

"He doesn't give a damn about transport in Britain," she adds, "he's too busy looking at the world panorama".