London: Buckingham Palace helped delay former British prime minister Gordon Brown's departure from 10 Downing Street so that David Cameron and Nick Clegg could seal a coalition government, a former Minister has claimed.
In his new book, former Treasury chief secretary David Laws has alleged that the Palace connived with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as they all wanted Brown to remain in office in early May while the two political parties negotiated a deal to form a coalition.
The Buckingham Palace and the two parties believed that Britain would be left without a government if Brown left Number 10 too quickly, the book says.
The book is the first published account by an insider of the five days that shaped Britain's first coalition government since the Second World War. Laws was on the four-member Liberal Democrats negotiation team which did the deal with Tory counterparts, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.
His book has also revealed that the Liberal Democrats never wanted to form a coalition with Brown, which would have meant being chained to "Labour's decaying corpse".
Ed Miliband, now Labour's leader, was a mere "tea boy" in his party's negotiations with the Liberal Democrats, Laws says in his book which is believed to be part of his plans for a political comeback.
Laws stepped down in May as Treasury chief secretary after revelations he had claimed GBP 40,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses to rent a room from his partner.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, November 14, 2010, 13:56