The attempted coup against British prime minister Gordon Brown was the great unmentionable at this morning’s cabinet meeting, where ministers went 90 minutes without mentioning the plot that convulsed Westminster earlier this week.
Sitting around the Cabinet table in 10 Downing Street with six ministers who had been forced to deny having given tacit support to the plot, Mr Brown made no reference to the challenge to his authority from ex-ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt.
Instead, he urged ministers to apply a “laser focus” to the problems facing Britain, especially the challenge of dealing with the disruption caused by the extended period of unusually cold weather.
Asked by reporters whether the failed putsch was discussed at the weekly meeting, Mr Brown’s spokesman replied: “Not at all, and nor would you expect it to be.” The spokesman described the meeting as businesslike and “collegiate”.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the mood at today’s Cabinet meeting was “very positive”. Mr Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “Wednesday was a very difficult day for the Labour Party, but I think this will come to be seen as the week when there was a very clear settled view expressed by the vast majority of people across the party that Gordon Brown is the right leader for the country and the right leader for our party.”
He dismissed speculation about his brother David’s delay in coming out with a public expression of support for Mr Brown as “Kremlinology”.
An upbeat Mr Brown yesterday laughed off the attempted putsch yesterday as “a storm in a teacup” but it has renewed intense speculation over the support he enjoys among senior colleagues.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband, seen by many as a potential successor, was among six ministers who have all denied a BBC report that they had offered tacit backing to the rebellion.
The Cabinet met as a poll for the Sun newspaper suggested that the attempt by Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt to force a secret ballot on Mr Brown’s leadership has damaged Labour’s standing with voters.
The YouGov survey, conducted after news of the plot emerged, put Labour on 30 per cent - a point down on the party’s score in a similar survey published by the newspaper just yesterday — with David Cameron’s Conservatives rising two points to 42 per cent - a lead of 12 points. The Liberal Democrats slipped one point to 16 per cent.
PA