Brown ignores issue of coup

THE attempted coup against Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the great unmentionable at yesterday morning’s cabinet meeting, where ministers went 90 minutes without uttering a single word about the plot which convulsed Westminster earlier this week.

Sitting around the cabinet table in 10 Downing Street with six ministers who had been forced to deny having given tacit support to the plot, Brown madeno reference to the challenge to his authority from former ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt.

Instead, he urged ministers to apply a “laser focus” to the problems facing Britain, especially the challenge of dealing with the disruption caused by the extended period of unusually cold weather.