THE THREAT of a challenge to Gordon Brown’s leadership appeared to be rising last night after a cabinet resignation by Hazel Blears seemingly intended to inflict maximum damage on the prime minister ahead of today’s critical European and English local elections.
As health secretary and possible successor Alan Johnston again insisted there was “absolutely no one” who could do a better job than Mr Brown, reports suggested that as many as 80 to 100 Labour MPs could be preparing to sign an e-mail already in circulation urging Mr Brown to stand down.
Attention was also focusing on cabinet ministers and their likely responses to the imminent cabinet reshuffle that Mr Brown hopes will reinvent his government and lead Labour into the general election year.
In an atmosphere of feverish speculation, it was being suggested that Mr Brown’s authority could be dealt another lethal blow if ministers refused to be moved or to continue to serve as the prime minister chooses.
Central to that scenario is the position of the chancellor, Alistair Darling, who Mr Brown again refused to confirm will still be in Number 11 Downing Street next week.
Following four ministerial resignations in two days, Conservative leader David Cameron claimed Mr Brown’s ability to command his cabinet had “disappeared” and that his government was “collapsing before our eyes”. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg declared Labour “finished” and Mr Brown’s government in “meltdown”.
“The prime minister is thrashing around, fighting for his own political survival. The country doesn’t have a government, it has a void,” he charged. “Labour is finished. The only choice now is between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.”
Mr Johnston, and potential new chancellor Ed Balls, led Labour laughter at that. But there was no disguising the discomfort of Labour backbenchers as Mr Cameron defined the resignation of the minister in charge of local government the day before the English local elections as “a direct challenge” to Mr Brown’s authority.
Ms Blears announced her resignation as communities secretary shortly before prime minister’s questions in the Commons, and after a meeting with Mr Brown on Tuesday night at which she expressed her anger at Mr Brown’s description of her behaviour over her expenses claims as “totally unacceptable”.
Ms Blears returned to Downing Street yesterday to inform Mr Brown of her decision, announced in a formal resignation letter conspicuously missing any form of tribute to the prime minister or his policies.
Ms Blears had agreed to pay £13,000 (€15,000) to the Inland Revenue in respect of capital gains tax previously avoided on the profit from the sale of a second home in London described to the Revenue for tax purposes as her primary residence.
In the Commons, however, Mr Cameron rejected Mr Brown’s attempt to suggest that Ms Blears and Ms Smith, like MPs on all sides, had been under pressure arising from the Daily Telegraph’s expenses expose.
Mr Cameron insisted that if it had to do with Ms Blears’s expenses claims she should have resigned weeks ago.
Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward would seem set for a significant promotion in Mr Brown’s planned reshuffle.
However, he and the prime minister will be anxiously awaiting the result of the European contest in Northern Ireland for any evidence of a negative effect on the prospects for the early devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly.