BATTERED BROWN QUELLS REBELLION
PRIME Minister Gordon Brown last night appeared to have staved off a full-blown rebellion, despite a stormy meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) where he faced calls to stand aside.
Speaking just hours after Labour suffered its worst humiliation in a national election for decades, with its share of the popular vote dwindling to 15.7 per cent, Brown delivered a heartfelt speech acknowledging his flaws and reaching out to an increasingly disgruntled party.
After entering the room accompanied by cheering and applause, the Prime Minister went on to admit that “there are some things I do well, some things not so well”, before admitting that he should be more inclusive of minority party voices.
In a meeting that was packed to the rafters, Brown appeared determined to cast off his authoritarian image by appealing to the wider party.
But some critics said that parts of the meeting had been staged by spin doctors and party whips, with a series of Labour veterans such as David Blunkett and Sir Gerald Kaufman lining up to heap praise on the Prime Minister.
And even as Brown was enjoying the moment, a poll emerged showing that a Labour party led by new home secretary Alan Johnson would grab 26 per cent of the vote, denying the Conservatives an outright Commons majority by just six MPs.
The PLP meeting also proved to be a platform for some of Brown’s fiercest critics.
Former home secretary Charles Clarke led calls for Brown to step aside, backed up by former trade secretary Stephen Byers, ex-transport minister Tom Harris and former whip Siobhain McDonagh.
But despite yesterday’s resignation by farming minister Jane Kennedy, who claimed that the public was “rejecting” the Labour party as a result of Brown’s leadership, the rebellion failed to gather momentum at the PLP meeting.
The support for Brown came despite Labour’s disastrous result in the European elections, in which many of the government’s natural voters in Yorkshire & Humber and the North West turned to the British National Party, which won two seats in the European parliament.