Brown has been warned to keep out of devolved issues, following Labour’s disastrous by-election performance last week, amid claims that his interventions in Scottish executive policy areas such as the Forth road bridge tolls cost the party vital votes.
McConnell believed he had struck a deal with Brown during the campaign for the Dunfermline and West Fife seat that Brown would not try to bounce him into rejecting plans for a £4 toll and backing a second Forth road crossing.
However, the day after they discussed the matter, Brown announced that the £4 plan was “dead in the water”. He later backed calls for a second £600m bridge.
Allies of the chancellor have sought to blame McConnell for losing the previously safe Labour seat, claiming that his decision to publicly contradict Brown’s statements confused voters and helped the Liberal Democrats win the seat.
The first minister has let it be known he thinks the chancellor was most at fault, and that he must stop intervening in areas that are controlled by the Scottish executive.
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“Westminster colleagues have got to appreciate that we now live in a devolved Scotland and that, although they have a major responsibility in terms of the governance of this country, they have devolved powers to us,” said Michael McMahon, the Hamilton North and Bellshill MSP.
“They can’t just pick up those powers and drop them because by-elections appear on the horizon. We should have worked together. The lesson is that if we don’t work together then we pay a price.”
McConnell was said to be astonished by Brown’s interventions. Yesterday some of his allies went further, one accusing Brown of “astonishing arrogance”, while another ally said the chancellor had acted like “a wean” and “become a liability”.
But supporters of Brown responded by accusing McConnell of setting out to undermine the chancellor by contradicting his position on the Forth bridge and on whether Scots should embrace Britishness as Brown had suggested. McConnell said he felt Scottish first and did not like writing “British” on official papers.
He also claimed in a newspaper interview during the campaign that he intended increasingly to intervene in policy areas reserved to Westminster.
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“Jack was more interested in making it a campaign about his personal authority than doing what was needed to hold a safe Labour seat. It was all about Jack willie-waving and saying I’m in charge. Every time we tried to close an issue down he opened it up again. Members of the party have never been so angry with him,” said one Brown ally.
Last night Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, sought to exploit Labour’s difficulties by claiming that his party could now emerge with the largest number of MSPs after next year’s Holyrood election.
“People are fed up with Labour and being taken for granted. This by-election represents a major shockwave. People are breaking away from traditional family loyalties to the Labour party. We now have a chance to lead Scotland after May 2007,” he said.
Last week was the first time the Liberals had won a Scottish Westminster seat from Labour at a by-election since 1945.