Cabinet leaders rally to quash talk of challenge

Senior Cabinet figures were desperately rallying around British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday, with the two men tipped as favourites to succeed him moving to quash rumours that he could be replaced before the next election.

Both the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, said Brown was the right man to be leading the party and that they did not want the top job.

Their endorsement came after the first tensions emerged from within the Cabinet over Brown's leadership.

Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, had described the Government's performance under Brown as "lamentable", adding that it needed to be more "human".

She also said Brown's decision to block the right of thousands of former Gurkhas to settle in Britain had put the Government "on the wrong side of the British sense of fair play, and no party can stay there for long without dire consequences".

A Commons defeat for the Prime Minister over the plan was swiftly followed by the embarrassing abandonment of his key reforms to MPs' expenses.

Brown now faces pressure to perform a third humiliating climbdown and scrap plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail. A vote on the reforms had been planned after the local and European elections next month, but with more than 100 Labour MPs opposing the plan, there is a real danger Brown could be defeated.

Johnson, tipped as a possible unity candidate should Brown be forced out, said he had no aspirations for the party leadership, adding that Brown was the right man "for these times".

But he was careful not to rule out the role entirely. "I am not saying there is no circumstances," he told the BBC. "I am not driven by this ambition. I want to be part of a good Government and I want it led by Gordon Brown."

In the past, Johnson has said he believed he did not have the ability to lead his party, stating: "I don't think I would have been good enough, frankly. I don't think I've got the capabilities."

His latest statement has prompted suspicions that he may feel obliged to take on the Labour leadership should his party ask him in the future. The former Labour Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, also backed Johnson as the next leader, saying Labour would perform better at the next election if the Health Secretary took over now.

Straw, seen as one of the few senior figures with the profile to take the party into an election, said Brown was "exactly the right person to be Prime Minister".

"There is not a vacancy and Gordon Brown is clearly the leader and the Prime Minister. If there were [a vacancy], I would not be standing. I think I've been pretty clear about that."

Even most in the party opposing Brown admit it is very unlikely he will be deposed before the next election, but believe the leadership question will resurface after next month's voting, in which Labour looks set for a drubbing.

In her article, Blears also appeared to criticise the Prime Minister's use of YouTube to broadcast his proposed reforms to MPs' expenses. Brown's video has been widely lampooned for his stilted manner and oddly timed smiles. "YouTube if you want to," she said. "But it is no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre."

After speaking to Brown on the phone on Sunday, Blears rushed out a statement, saying she wanted "to make it clear that the Prime Minister enjoys my 100 per cent support. Any suggestion that I intended what I wrote as criticism of him or his leadership is completely wrong."

Downing St was angered by Blears' intervention, but Brown's aides are hoping her "clarification" will draw a line under the spat.

But rumblings from backbenchers over Brown continued, with one saying he had been "mortally damaged" by his recent performance. Some wild ideas are being punted around, such as the left-wing backbencher Gordon Prentice running as a stalking horse candidate.

- INDEPENDENT