Brown dismisses leadership move as 'storm in a teacup'

Gordon Brown today brushed off the latest attempt to oust him as British prime minister as “a storm in a teacup”.

In his first remarks since the attempted putsch by former Cabinet ministers yesterday, he insisted he had spent little time considering the challenge to his leadership.

He told BBC radio: “It’s taken up very little of my time.

“I think it’s one of these sidelines in this time when people are far more worried about, as they should be, about what we are doing to deal with the weather and to make sure that people are safe and secure.

“So it’s not going to take up much of my time and hasn’t, certainly, taken up much of my time.”

Mr Brown said that, as the drama at Westminster unfolded yesterday afternoon, he was in meetings about Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism, and efforts to cope with the snow.

He dismissed suggestions that ministers’ eventual statements of support had been lukewarm, insisting: “You can read into quotes what you want.”

Mr Brown claimed that most Cabinet ministers demonstrated their support for him “within an hour or two”.

He said: “I would say to you this is a bit of a storm in a teacup. We are actually dealing with real storms at the moment.”

Mr Brown said he would continue to “lead from the front” and “say what I think, even if sometimes it’s unpopular”.

Cabinet loyalists had earlier proclaimed that the latest attempt to oust Brown was dead, but questions remained over the depth of support for the Prime Minister among his most senior colleagues.

Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward dismissed yesterday’s call from former ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt for a secret ballot on Mr Brown’s leadership as no more than a passing “distraction”.

“What happened yesterday was without question unfortunate, it was a distraction,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“But what we know this morning, 24 hours later, is that this is a party that wants Gordon Brown as leader.”

The round robin letter circulated by Mr Hoon and Mrs Hewitt was publicly supported by only a handful of backbenchers.

However the protracted spectacle of Cabinet ministers emerging during the course of the afternoon to offer, in some cases, only lukewarm backing for Mr Brown’s leadership raised questions about how much support he really enjoyed.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband – seen by some MPs as a potential successor - was the last to declare his backing – in less than ringing terms – almost seven hours after the news broke.

Mr Miliband was one of six Cabinet ministers named by the BBC who the plotters were said to believe would have been prepared to move against Mr Brown in the right circumstances.

The others were Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, and Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy.

Tory leader David Cameron seized on the apparent divisions, saying that Mr Brown was in “deep trouble” and renewing his calls for an immediate general election.

“You just have to ask yourself ’How much time do you think senior ministers spent yesterday thinking about the budget deficit, about the education of our children, about the war in Afghanistan, and how much were they thinking about their own careers?’ for you to realise that, as we’ve put it pretty clearly, we cannot go on like this.

“We’ve got to have an election and a change of government.”

Labour backbencher Eric Joyce, who resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Mr Ainsworth last September, supported claims that Mr Hoon and Mrs Hewitt had been egged on by senior figures in the party.

“I think there are one or two aristocrats at the top end of the Labour Party who think if they act coy they may inherit the leadership of the party. I think that is now gone,” he said.

“I think it’s fairly widely known that there are a few people who imagine, if they just sit there quietly, the backbenchers will deal with the work for them and they can perhaps inherit for a brief period the prime ministership.

“That has now passed.”

He did not deny suggestions that Mr Miliband – who is widely believed to have flunked a previous attempt to topple Mr Brown – was among those involved, but added: “I think there is more than one person involved, actually.

“It’s quite destabilising for people to give hints to people like Geoff and Patricia.”

He warned that yesterday’s events would not leave the Labour Party “more unified”.

“I simply think there is an element of internal ambition where people aren’t prepared to take their own risk,” he said.