While the new polls showed that Wednesday’s abortive coup attempt had damaged Labour’s standing, Downing Street tried to convey the impression that Mr Brown had yesterday cracked the whip over his Cabinet and demanded a “laser focus” on the issues that most affect the country.
A rescheduled Friday gathering of the Cabinet, convened in Downing Street after a ministerial tour of the south-west of England had to be cancelled due to bad weather, was described as businesslike and “collegiate” by Mr Brown’s spokesman.
Ranged around the Cabinet table were the six ministers who had been named by the coup plotters as potential backers of a plan to unseat the Prime Minister. Mr Brown made no reference to the challenge to his authority from ex-ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt but the coded message from his official spokesman that he had urged ministers to focus on the problems facing Britain was a clear enough rebuke.
The meeting dealt principally with the disruption caused by the unusually cold weather, with a series of ministers making contributions. Other issues ranged from the failed Christmas Day bomb attack over Detroit and the Government’s food strategy.
The Cabinet met as a Yougov poll suggested that the attempt by Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt to force a secret ballot on Mr Brown’s leadership caused public support for Labour to slip back.
The survey, conducted in the aftermath of the failed plot, put Labour on 30%, down one point overnight, with David Cameron’s Conservatives rising two points to 42% – a lead of 12 points. The Liberal Democrats slipped one point to 16%.
A second poll for BBC2’s Daily Politics found that while voters said, by a margin of 50% to 42%, that Labour would have “greater appeal” if Mr Brown stood aside, some 69% accepted that if he did so there were “no obvious more popular candidates”.
The ComRes survey found 60% of those questioned thought Labour was the most divided of the main parties.
A backlash against the coup plotters – retiring MPs Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt – was well under way and Charles Clarke, Mr Brown’s old nemesis, was also having his collar felt by local party activists. It was expected that the former party chairman would be told by his local party to “shut up” when he met with them last night.
Mr Brown’s allies wasted no time in fingering Mr Clarke as the source of the list naming six Cabinet names who would be sympathetic to a move to unseat the PM.
The release of names late on Wednesday night, when the plot had clearly failed, was a last-ditch attempt to further undermine Mr Brown. Combined with the sluggish and lukewarm expressions of support from Cabinet ministers, it cemented the impression of the Prime Minister not being trusted by his closest political colleagues.
Allies of the Prime Minister even speculated that the coup had gone off half-cocked deliberately in order to weaken the Brown camp ahead of a General Election defeat and the next internal battle for leadership of the party.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband, one of the six ministers who all denied a BBC report that they had offered tacit backing to the rebellion, took the brunt of the backlash. Seen as the main beneficiary of a leadership crisis, he was once again criticised by allies and opponents for failing either to resign or to back Mr Brown to the hilt.
Others, like Harriet Harman, the deputy leader, are thought to have secured themselves an enhanced role in the election campaign in exchange for shoring up Mr Brown.
