Comment: War looms between Blair and Brown: The argument over how the health service should be financed goes to the very heart of the future of New Labour.

(From The Observer)

Byline: WILL HUTTON

THERE HAS BEEN growing tension for months but last week it became obvious that Messrs Blair and Brown are on a collision course which promises to rival the row between Prime Minister Thatcher and her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson overshadowing the Deutschmark in the 1980s, the downward spiral that led to Lawson's disaffection and eventual resignation.

That same potent brew of ideological fissure, personality difference, clash over power and substantive argument between the Treasury and Number 10 is at work again, but this time the bone of contention is not foreign but domestic. It is over reform of public services.

They have been here before, but this time round neither feels he can give ground. Their two speeches at last week's party conference captured their very different attitude to where the Government goes next - Brown appealing to the Labour Party to realise it was witness to a historic rebuilding of the …