Gordon Brown tried to give the impression of business as normal yesterday as he shook off the immediate threat to his leadership by chairing the first meeting of his reshuffled Cabinet.

Gordon Brown tried to give the impression of business as normal yesterday as he shook off the immediate threat to his leadership by chairing the first meeting of his reshuffled Cabinet.

The Prime Minister also completed junior appointments to the Government.

Having survived 12 Governmental resignations in a week and a tense meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday, at which an anticipated backbench rebellion failed to materialise, Mr Brown tried to move on to the agenda on reforming Parliament and politics by convening the first meeting of his National Democratic Renewal Council after the usual Tuesday morning Cabinet.

While rebel backbenchers warned Mr Brown's leadership was now on probation after his penitent acceptance of his own need to change his style of government, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, made a slip that showed the danger is not over for the Prime Minister.

Mr Miliband, who was once tipped as a likely successor, made it plain that Alan Johnson, the new Home Secretary, was the leading candidate to replace the Prime Minister.

"The Labour Party does not want a new leader; there is no vacancy, there is no challenger. The leading contender, Alan Johnson, is backing the Prime Minister to the hilt. So that is that," Mr Miliband said in an early morning interview.

The gaffe left the possibility of an autumn challenge against Mr Brown hanging in the air. Mr Miliband, who was labelled a coward by rebels for not following his friend James Purnell out of Cabinet last Thursday, is said to have stayed his hand because the timing of the coup was not right.

Backbenchers and potential Cabinet rebels have convinced themselves that unseating Mr Brown at the Labour conference at the end of September will give them time to elect a new leader and have breathing space up until a May 2010 election.

A new leader now would, as Lord Mandelson warned them, make the pressure for an immediate General Election irresistible, they have concluded.

Mr Purnell, the former Work and Pensions Secretary whose resignation triggered the Cabinet crisis, stood by his guns yesterday and said that while he had no regrets about branding the Prime Minister an electoral liability, he was not planning to snipe from the sidelines.

"I said what I said, I stand by it. Of course I can be happy if I turn out to be proven wrong and Gordon Brown leads the Labour Party to victory at the next election," said Mr Purnell.

Tom Harris, the Glasgow South MP and former Junior Transport Minister who spoke out against Mr Brown at Monday night's meeting, said he would not be providing a running commentary on the Prime Minister either.

Ben Bradshaw, the newly promoted Culture Secretary, said he believed the premier had accepted his style of leadership had to change.

"He has acknowledged the way No 10 has been operating has not been in the interests either of him or of the Labour government, that he needs to behave in a more collegiate way. Those are things people will welcome," he said.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, urged his leader to "leave the superficial spin and nonsense to David Cameron and concentrate on what he's great at - being a man of substance, dealing with the enormous challenges our country faces".

As Mr Brown's reshuffle concluded, Shahid Malik MP made a jubilant return as Communities Minister after he was found not to have breached ministerial rules over a rental agreement in his constituency.

Mr Malik stepped down from his post as Justice Minister after the Daily Telegraph questioned the amount of rent he was paying for a flat in Dewsbury at the height of its expenses expose.

Mr Malik yesterday said he had been "angered and hurt by the false allegations in The Telegraph newspaper article and the media frenzy that ensued".

The MP, who was Britain's first Muslim minister, said he would now focus on serving his constituents.

He said: "I will now focus all my attention and efforts on serving constituents in Dewsbury and Mirfield with my integrity intact and serving my country as minister in this Labour government."

During a two-week inquiry, Sir Philip Mawer, the Prime Minister's independent adviser on the ministerial code, received evidence from Mr Malik and The Daily Telegraph and commissioned independent valuations on the MP's home and office.

The inquiry findings have been passed to Downing Street but will not be published.

There were no Scottish promotions after the last tier of ministerial appointments were announced, but details of the Whips office appointments, the launchpad for a ministerial career, were not announced yesterday.

Mr Brown spent a huge amount of political capital on his survival. There are now heightened expectations among Labour backbenchers that announcements will be made soon regarding an inquiry into the Iraq War and a compromise over the part-privatisation of Royal Mail.

There are two difficult by-elections, in Glasgow North East and Norwich, and a number of former ministers are now stalking the corridors who could plunge the dagger in - although none has declared that they will.