In stormy Commons scenes, Tory leader David Cameron said "the government is collapsing before our eyes" and Lib Dem Nick Clegg said "Labour is finished".

But Mr Brown rejected their calls for an immediate general election.

He said he wanted to get on with the job of steering the country through recession and cleaning up the MPs' expenses system.

BBC Daily Politics reporter Anne Alexander has been told some Labour MPs are seeking support for Gordon Brown to step down and be replaced by Health Secretary Alan Johnson.

If enough MPs back them they believe Mr Brown could be persuaded to go and it could happen as early as next week, the MPs have said.

The Guardian reports the MPs are circulating a round robin letter which they plan to hand to Mr Brown and says they believe they could gain up to 80 signatures.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8080777.stm

its all getting quite boring now.

Does Gordon Brown wear false teeth?

PM told to go as minister quits

James Purnell has stepped down from the cabinet and told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "stand aside".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8083585.stm

Not long to go now.

Cameron will be our PM for 10 years, equalling or 'bettering' Blair's term in length.

He used to work in PR before he became a politician, and it really shows. He IS really good at it.

My friend was wearing a mini badge which said 'truth' on it, and when I looked closer I was like :shock: "WHY are you wearing a badge for the conservatives?!' (there was a tiny logo of their squiggly-tree-thing on it) and she had had NO idea it was a campaign badge.

Have to rate his tactics. It's a shame that it seems that that's all that matters in politics in Britain today (then again, not sure if we can honestly say there's been a time in history when manipulation of the media/image hasn't been the main issue in government).

as much as i dislike gordon brown, i'd pick him over david cameron any day. things have just gone down hill since he became pm. couldn't be helped.

did everyone vote?

SO the reshuffling is happening. Local Elections are showing that the Conservatives and the Lib Dem are more successful than Labour . . .and another person from the cabinet has resigned...and everyone is questioning Gordon Brown's leadership. . .

I honestly hope we don't get Cameron as PM. He reminds me of a nagging mother-in-law.

Gordon Brown does look done for though, when more than two of your team mates start leaving the game, you're probably going to loose.

Gordon Brown isn't really that great a prime minister. Nor was he a great chancellor. Under his watch the gov has been giving out contracts to private businesses to do the jobs that gov should be doing itself.

As a result of this he has lumbered the country with billions of pounds worth of debt. And this debt is being kept off the balance sheet so people don't ask too many questions.

This business-gov love-in will continue with Cameron or David Miliband as PM.

Alan Johnson, the only decent alternative, should become PM. He is not university-educated, he worked as a postman for twenty years, and has four children from two marriages. Not your average PR-driven career politician.

Johnson compares favorably to Cameron and Miliband. Given the economic situation he is much more likely to appeal to the working man and the rest of the country as people think of their immediate and family needs.

Too late for labour to recover before the next election, if you factor in the whole internal election and miliband going for the job too. It will only make the (already existing) splits within the government more visible and make them unelectable.

From what I've seen/heard (not very much), Alan Johnson seems the best... but his best hope is to become leader after labour have lost the election, and then make a clean break from 'New Labour' (at least in the voters' eyes) and hope the Conservatives make a pig's ear of governing early on - then he MIGHT have a hope for 2015 (or whenever it will be).

Why would Alan Johnson (or anyone seriously wanting the job of prime minister for more than about 5 mins) want to stand (and lose) next year, missing out on their fair crack of the whip? (I made a pun!)

Ya'qub wrote:

Why would Alan Johnson (or anyone seriously wanting the job of prime minister for more than about 5 mins) want to stand (and lose) next year, missing out on their fair crack of the whip? (I made a pun!)

That's a very good point. And that may explain why people are resisting putting the knife into Gordon Brown.

But it is not inevitable that Labour will lose the next election even if they get a new leader.

The Conservatives have to get alot more votes than Labour does to have a majority on the House of Commons. Something to do with the system and how the numbers work out.

If there is a new PM he will automatically get a boost in the polls. He can capitalise on that to narrowly avoid losing the snap election that will be called for, possibly, October.

Before the election the new leader can lay out a new set of policies and at the same time expose the lack of policies from the Conservative Party.

David Cameron doesn't have the same effect that Tony Blair did in 1997. I think people are waiting for a reason not to vote for him. A new Labour leader may be that reason.

Hmmm... I would like to believe you. But it all seems too much like wishful thinking, I'm afraid.

Cos it's not just Brown who is 'tarnished' in the public eye. Most of them are, with no truly interesting people waiting in the wings. It was the Brownites who were supposed to symbolise a clean break from Blair and his supporters, who many of the public had begun to truly hate.

So anyone who's a close ally of Brown will be perceived as/nearly as incompetent as him, and anyone who had been a close ally of Blair (who would be the most likely to push to get rid of Brown) will be perceived as slimy just like Blair.

Doomed, they have to wait for a new generation and perhaps start New New Labour or something.

Plus there is a trend in europe - which started in eastern but has spread west and there are the beginnings of it in Britain too - of ultra-right wing parties and/or Christian fundamentalists. It was a couple of years ago in France that it was the far-right party which was in direct opposition to the centre-right party (with the Left in tatters).

And as far as I know it's a similar story in the Netherlands at the moment. Although the horrible Geert Wilders is banned from standing for election, his party are basically guaranteed second place (behind a centre-right party) if they manage to find a charismatic figurehead to replace him.

So where is Socialism left? (you can omit the word 'where' from that question if you like.)

There was never really any substanative difference between the Blairites and Brownites. The Brownites provided the policy and the Blairites dressed it up for PR.

I agree on the need for a new generation to emerge. Maybe a proper election (one with GB running as Labopur leader) can signal a true break from the past and allow the new generation to come to the fore.

But I don't see any young, dynamic politicians who can connect with voters and provide the fresh start that people want. Current young parliamentary hopefuls will be nothing more than career politicians. They will be well-versed in spin and PR - the kind that Blair dealt in and Cameron is toying with.

With the current flock you'll get yet more of the same. Voters will be put-off and only die-hards will vote. Protest votes will be cast for the far-right and they will be given a bigger role than they deserve.

Given that
1, current politicians are still all spin and no substance
2, the economic depressions
3, protest votes for the far right
4, falling voter turnout
there is a reason to reconnect with the needs of the masses and core socialist values. Not New New Labour but Real Labour.

At the moment Alan Johnson best empitomises that. He is down to earth and it is believable that he would be in tune with the needs of the common man.

(Excuse the hyperbole. And no, I am not a communist.)

Beast wrote:

there is a reason to reconnect with the needs of the masses and core socialist values. Not New New Labour but Real Labour.

Agreed. Except for the fact that such a party would never get elected, because of the way the society has changed since there was last a socialist-ish government in Britain - 30 years ago.

And if we're just going to name our ideal pm then I'd choose Ken Livingstone (minus a few of his weaker points).

Beast wrote:

At the moment Alan Johnson best epitomises that. He is down to earth and it is believable that he would be in tune with the needs of the common man.

Yet people would vote for a WHOLE party - who is strong enough that he could ever put along side him from the current crop? They all seem either smarmy or wet or a combination of the two.

Beast, you seem very pessimistic about the next generation of politicians. Don't you think that someone actually rather good might be inspired by Obama?

You wrote:

Ya'qub wrote:

Beast, you seem very pessimistic about the next generation of politicians. Don't you think that someone actually rather good might be inspired by Obama?

There would be a generational overlap, no? In other words, the leaders of the future would be around and visible today. Where are they?

Trying to distinguish themselves from anything that Gordon Brown has touched?

Ya'qub wrote:

Agreed. Except for the fact that such a party would never get elected, because of the way the society has changed since there was last a socialist-ish government in Britain - 30 years ago.

And if we're just going to name our ideal pm then I'd choose Ken Livingstone (minus a few of his weaker points).

We are living through what is being described as the worst economic situation since at least the Second World War. I expect this will have a lasting social impact. Already people are loosing faith in neo-liberal free market capitalism and politics is becoming polarised. This may lead to a need for socialist-ish policies.

Whislt the far-right may make short term gains, people will soon give up on them once:
1 - voters discover how incompetent they are
2 - their policies fail to match the diverse nature of modern society
3 - the left and mainstream get their acts together

I suspect the left will have an upper hand as people struggle with their day to day lives and demand an increased welfare state.

Maybe at the moment Ken Livingstone is a bit too much. A lefty who is more palatable to middle England may have a better chance.

Ya'qub wrote:

Yet people would vote for a WHOLE party - who is strong enough that he could ever put along side him from the current crop? They all seem either smarmy or wet or a combination of the two.

There may be few inspiring figures who Alan Johnson can choose from. But then who was inspiring in Tony Blair's government?

The smarmyness, btw, extends to the Conservatives. But it's nothing that a little PR can't resolve.

Ya'qub wrote:

Beast, you seem very pessimistic about the next generation of politicians. Don't you think that someone actually rather good might be inspired by Obama?

His name was Tony Blair.

Look how that turned out. Probably explains why people are unsure about Cameron.