Tribune

by Chris McLaughlin

GORDON BROWN is under mounting pressure to “up his game” against the Tories amid speculation that he may have just weeks to ward off a leadership challenge.

Ministers and backbench MPs are urging him to return from his Southwold holiday with a clear plan of attack on the emptiness or absence of David Cameron’s policies and a bolder new direction for Labour.

The calls follow the midweek intervention by Foreign Secretary David Miliband which was seen as both as positioning for any leadership race and an example of the sort of attack strategy which is being urged on Mr Brown.

Mr Miliband, who said “the times demand a radical new phase”, was immediately warned by Welsh Labour leader Rhodri Morgan that it would be “suicide” for any minister to challenge Mr Brown this autumn.

In the wake of an inconclusive negotiation over Labour’s manifesto under the Warwick II talks, Mr Miliband issued a stream of coded criticism without once mentioning Mr Brown by name in a Guardian article which largely concentrated on the need for new ideas and attacking the Tories’ “status quo” policies.

Ministers lined up to dismiss any portrayal of his comments as pointing towards an imminent leadership bid and stressed that the call for new ideas was a positive reflection of a wider feeling within the party.

The intervention came as swirling speculation about Mr Brown’s future focused on rumours of a letter which had reportedly been circulating among MPs before the House of Commons went into recess last week which calls on Mr Brown to stand down. Tribune has been told that a “scrappy draft” has been made by two MPs but that it had not been circulated for signature.

Speculation that Justice Minister Jack Straw was planning to lead a delegation of “grey suits” was also slapped down.

One MP said it was time for Mr Brown to “up his game and get stuck in to Cameron”. Another, Rotherham MP Denis MacShane accused the media of “giving the Tories a free ride” by failing to “examine the gaping holes and contradictions in a party that seeks to govern us in two years time”.

He claimed he had been rejected by BBC programmes when he made clear he was going to attack the Tories in interviews and said: “Real leadership is about walking up and down the parapet urging fire upon the enemy. For the first time this summer, one can sense some grip and a focus on the enemy, not ourselves. It is overdue, and all the briefers and ‘friends of’ could do worse than follow Miliband’s example.”