Speculation about British prime minister Gordon Brown's future gathered pace today with a new opinion poll putting the Conservatives 22 points ahead.
Ministers have openly spoken of their support for the embattled prime minister but a day after Labour lost one of its safest parliamentary seats, newspapers were rife with rumours of backbenchers were sharpening their knives behind the scenes.
The speculation has grown since the Scottish National Party (SNP) snatched a slim 365-vote majority in the Glasgow East constituency with a 22.5 per cent swing that overturned the 13,500 majority enjoyed by Labour at the 2005 election.
An opinion poll for the Independent on Saturday showed the opposition Conservatives with 46 per cent support of voters, way ahead of Labour on 24 per cent.
That would give the Tories a landslide victory at the next general election, which Brown must call by May 2010.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw, tipped as a possible replacement for Mr Brown warned his cabinet colleagues not to seek to oust the under-fire leader.
Mr Straw urged them to close ranks and not engage in damaging "navel gazing", sources said
today.
While he found the SNP's sensational victory in the supposedly rock-solid Labour seat "very worrying", the message from voters was to focus on policy not "frantic introspection", he believes.
"He believes Gordon Brown is the right man to lead us through this," the source said. "He has led us through difficult periods in the past and can do so again."
Mr Straw spoke out amid reports that colleagues were plotting behind the scenes, with one unnamed colleague telling The Telegraph it had "moved from possible to probable that Gordon will be toppled".
Cabinet minister Ed Miliband last night dismissed the reports and said there was a "collective responsibility not to turn inwards but to turn outwards and understand the concerns of the country and to develop the policy agenda around the economy, around some of the social issues, around climate change — the big issues of the future that can win us the next election".
This weekend the party's main policy-making forum is meeting to try to work out how to win back voters disillusioned by a string of political gaffes, rising inflation, falling house prices and a slowing economy.
Unions hope to use Mr Brown's weak position — and their financial leverage as providers of 90 per cent of party funds — to force through as many of their demands as possible.
Mr Brown has consistently rejected any return to 1970s-style industrial relations such as secondary picketing. But the Tories will today paint him as the "helpless prisoner" of union bosses.
Mr Brown, whose popularity has slumped in the 13 months since he replaced Tony Blair, has vowed to fight on, saying he is the right man to be at the helm as the country deals with difficult worldwide economic problems.
Former minister David Blunkett backed that stance.
"The issues that affect people are not ones which divide the party or Gordon Brown from any potential successor," he told BBC radio.
"We are not a hatchet job party like the Conservatives who can drop their leader literally at the drop of a hat.
"So grow up, don't go for what might be a popular quick fix that you couldn't actually put in place and let's actually combine in the way we know best and work out what will actually reach people."
Reuters & PA