Timing of lame-duck coup a shot in the foot for party

AS GORDON Brown was getting the better of David Cameron at prime minister’s questions, the television news channels flashed up the breaking news that two former cabinet ministers were demanding a secret ballot on whether he should remain as Labour leader.

It was hardly the best-timed of launches for their mid-winter plot. And with blizzards sweeping Britain in the worst cold snap for 30 years, many voters will probably be dismayed and perplexed at the latest bout of navel-gazing by Westminster politicians.

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, who sent the round robin letter to MPs, certainly caught Westminster on the hop. No advance word of the letter to fellow Labour MPs had leaked out, giving them the key element of surprise.

Their revolt brought to a head weeks of sniping within the Labour Party over Brown’s leadership. At all levels of the party – including around the cabinet table – there are serious doubts about Brown’s ability to lead Labour into a successful general election later this year.

In their letter, Hoon, a former chief whip, and Hewitt, a former health secretary, argue that it is time for the questions over his leadership to be resolved once and for all.

They claim that a secret ballot would allow MPs to express their view – effectively a call to back Brown or sack him. If he won convincingly, then the party could unite behind him in the run up to the election.

That was just cover for a last-ditch attempt to dump Brown and get a new leader – such as the Home Secretary Alan Johnson or the Foreign secretary David Miliband – who they believe would give Labour a fighting chance at the next election.

So far there is no sign of Labour cabinet ministers rushing to back the Hoon-Hewitt plot. Downing Street was quick to orchestrate declarations of support from loyalist ministers for the embattled prime minister, but it was hardly an overwhelming or enthusiastic vote of confidence.

The so-called “usual suspects” – such as Frank Field and the former home secretary Charles Clarke – backed the call for the ballot on whether Brown should go. But they are well-known critics of the prime minister whose views are largely discounted by most Labour MPs.

The plot will only gain traction if it is openly backed by members of the Cabinet.

If Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson or Hilary Benn signed up or went to Brown and told him to go, the game would be up.

The most immediate beneficiary of the attempted coup against Brown is likely to be David Cameron. He started the new year with an embarrassing wobble over his tax and spending plans, particularly the confusion over his commitment to a tax break for married couples – a slip that Brown exploited to the full in parliament yesterday.

Yet just as Labour appeared to be gaining the advantage and narrowing the gap in the polls, the party shoots itself in the foot.