Britain: Tony Blair will today reject Chancellor Gordon Brown's most overt attack yet on his leadership by refusing a timetable for the transition of power demanded by an increasing number of mutinous Labour MPs.
Mr Brown fanned the flames of a growing Labour rebellion in the increasingly bitter aftermath of the party's local election defeat yesterday, saying Labour would "fail the country" if it failed to "renew" itself, rebuild its coalition and recover trust.
In perhaps his sharpest rebuke to the prime minister, the chancellor said Labour should have done better in last year's general election.
While maintaining his distance from those circulating a letter among Labour MPs demanding that Mr Blair set a date for his departure from 10 Downing Street, Mr Brown insisted that arranging "a stable and orderly transition" was now a matter for Mr Blair and the Labour Party to resolve.
That in turn provoked a state of undeclared cabinet warfare, with newly appointed home secretary Dr John Reid accusing party rebels of plotting the reversal of Mr Blair's domestic reform programme, the return to "Old Labour" and of trying to force Mr Blair out within a year of winning a mandate to serve a full third term in office.
Dr Reid said any one of the three would be "a disaster", while in combination they would prove "an absolute catastrophe" which would see Labour returned to the political wilderness of the 1980s.
Now increasingly seen as the likeliest "Blairite" candidate in any future leadership election, Dr Reid also warned the plotters: "They are not going to win."
However, Labour MPs appeared sharply divided on the succession question, with 52 of 172 surveyed by the BBC's World This Weekend programme saying Mr Blair should leave office within the next 12 months, and a further 19 saying he should go within a year to two years, while 29 MPs thought he should stay on as prime minister for as long as he liked, and 68 refused to answer.
Only four of those Labour MPs surveyed suggested Mr Blair should continue in office until just before the next election - an option seemingly not ruled out by some of Mr Blair's closest advisers.
At the same time, some 50 MPs are reported to have signed a draft letter requesting the party's National Executive Committee "in consultation with the prime minister to lay out, no later than the end of the current parliamentary session [ in July], a clear timetable and procedure for the election of a new Labour Party leader".
One of those reshuffled on Friday, the former chief whip and now social exclusion minister Hilary Armstrong, said: "The majority of the party are thinking - why on earth are some quarters playing into the hands of the Tories when they want to be getting on with servicing their constituents? Setting a timetable [ for Mr Blair to leave office] is exactly what the Tories want."
However, Mr Brown made no claims of "renewal" in defence of Friday's radical cabinet reshuffle, about which he was not consulted and which was seen by his supporters, as well as those on the party left, as a defiant declaration of Mr Blair's intention to remain in office for some time.
While Mr Blair had hoped the reshuffle would restore a sense of order and fresh purpose to his administration, today's Downing Street press conference will instead be dominated by a power struggle at the top that has never been more open.
Asked on the BBC's AM programme if he had seen the events of the last few days as "a Blairite coup", Mr Brown told Andrew Marr: "What I saw in the last few days is the electorate telling us that we've got to do better."
Some reports interpreted Mr Brown as joining Dr Reid's "unity" call when he said of those lobbying for a summer timetable for Mr Blair's departure: "We do not need outriders dictating the agenda."
However, that was not the interpretation inside Number 10 following an interview in which Mr Brown repeatedly spoke of the need for party "renewal", while maintaining that the majority of Labour members and people in the country at large would look to Mr Blair to ensure "the stable and orderly transition" he had promised last year.