GORDON BROWN yesterday made his most explicit demand for Tony Blair to “organise” his departure from Downing Street. At the same time he acknowledged more openly than ever before that he intended to succeed him.

In a frank interview in Sunday AM on BBC One, Mr Brown said that he was determined “in the next stage of my political career” to broaden the new Labour coalition in the hope of winning his party a fourth term.

Mr Brown made plain, as he has done many times, that he wants to take over in an orderly way and not through a coup. “I’ve seen throughout the last 25 years when the Labour Party divides and extremists take over, and the moderates lose control, that is a recipe for disaster,” he said.

Mr Blair, too, wants to bow out quietly, probably after his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister next year.

By last night, after one of Labour’s bloodiest Sundays — that recalled memories of its dark days of the 1970s and 1980s — both sides in the epic battle that has gone on since Mr Blair became leader in 1994 were beginning to wonder whether a peaceful outcome was any longer possible.

Mr Brown’s close supporters were distancing themselves from the round-robin letter being circulated among MPs calling for a timetable to be set. They want to give Mr Blair time to assess the situation, resume talks with the Chancellor, agree the terms of a transition and then — they hope — back Mr Brown as successor.But as the Blairite inner-circle began its fightback against the “timetablers”, denouncing their true motives as getting rid of Mr Blair now and returning the party to an old Labour agenda, some Brownites believed that a confrontation at this year’s conference was becoming inevitable.

“If they really think they can get through this year without giving some indication of when Tony is going they must be mad,” one leading Brownite said, attacking as “bonkers” interventions by John Reid, the new Home Secretary, Stephen Byers, and Downing Street itself. Mr Reid had said that the letter was the work of “old Labour” plotters who wanted to oust Mr Blair.

A text message sent to BBC journalists by David Hill, Mr Blair’s veteran communications chief, set the tone for a day that had all commentators reaching for their “civil war” lexicon. Describing himself as a “senior Labour source”, Mr Hill averred: “My view is that there is a move to unseat the PM and reverse Blairite reforms.”

It was a stunning counterattack, and clearly co-ordinated with other senior Blairites. The last thing Mr Brown wants is to be portrayed as being anti-reform. Describing the letter backers in that way was clearly designed to ensure that Mr Brown kept aloof from them.

But will Mr Blair ever be able to give Mr Brown what he wants to get him over the fraught next few months? Having infuriated him by putting two pure Blairites — Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith — into the jobs of party chairman and chief whip, posts that will be vital when the handover comes, how can he convince Mr Brown that he is serious about going relatively soon? Mr Blair is adamant that he cannot give a date for his departure. To do so would hand a gift to the Tories who would portray him as a lame duck and set off a new wave of massive speculation.

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As Mr Brown disclosed yesterday, Mr Blair has spoken to him about the transition at talks that have also been attended by his most trusted aides, Alastair Campbell and Philip Gould.

Mr Brown wants those to start again. Mr Blair is insistent that he will give Mr Brown plenty of time to take over.

Aides say that Mr Blair has nagging doubts about Mr Brown’s commitment to deepening the new Labour reform programme, which he is determined to bequeath as his legacy, and hopes that he will come out and back keenly the case for NHS and pension reform, and civil nuclear power. In the end, though, he will probably back Mr Brown, despite advancing the cause of Mr Reid, Alan Johnson and others in his reshuffle.

One doubt last night was whether Mr Blair could remain in control of the timing of his departure. In a brutal reshuffle, he added to the rising toll of disaffection on the backbenches and even in the Government. He has lost friends over the way he dispensed with the services of Charles Clarke, demoted Jack Straw and humiliated Geoff Hoon. One of his departing ministers, Jane Kennedy, took the unusual step of saying that she had resigned because of policy disagreements over health. Mr Brown hinted that he would bring back Mr Clarke.

The mood is febrile, although Mr Blair will almost certainly — with the help of good organisation by the whips — receive a show of loyalty and support at tonight’s meeting of the parliamentary party.

Mr Blair and his close circle may have calculated that Mr Brown, rebuffed for so long, will still not strike against him because he cannot afford to.

Yesterday Mr Brown was clear. “We have a Prime Minister who says he will not fight the next election and everyone recognises has done a very, very good job,” he said. “He has also said that he wants a stable and orderly transition and that he wants the chance to be able to organise that.”

Mr Brown added that that was the “mainstream” position in the party. He added: “We don’t need outriders dictating the agenda.”

By outriders he was referring not to the supporters of the timetable letter but to the “ultras”, such as Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn and Hilary Armstrong, who keep saying that Mr Blair should stay on through the Parliament.

The biggest question in politics now is whether the party will act against Mr Blair if he refuses to give Mr Brown the answers he wants.

THE CHANCELLOR’S NEW BUZZWORDS

Buoyed by suggestions of a letter backed by 50 Labour MPs calling for Tony Blair to set out a departure timetable, Gordon Brown hit the airwaves yesterday. In the process he added two more buzzwords to political parlance:

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