Ministers unite to support Brown

Moves to force the Prime Minister from office continued to gather pace as more Labour MPs criticised his performance and demanded he face a leadership contest this autumn. But Mr Brown's most senior allies refused to wield the knife, instead calling for unity to improve the party's prospects.

Business Secretary John Hutton said he did not dismiss the rebels' concerns, but refused to join their calls for a change of leader.

He said: "I think my colleagues are right to say that the Government need to do better. For heaven's sake, we are 20 percentage points behind in the opinion polls.

"And that is a challenge to all of us in the Cabinet to do better - not just to Gordon as prime minister, but to all of us to do better, to make our arguments more convincing and clearer."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who is seen as a potential successor to Mr Brown, said he also did not agree with calls for a leadership election.

But he went on: "I think there's a recognition from the top of the party down, from Gordon down, that these are very, very challenging times for the Labour Party."

But criticism of Mr Brown grew as more former ministers spoke out against his leadership.

The crisis engulfing the premier, which comes ahead of Labour's annual conference next weekend, escalated on Saturday with the sacking of a second Labour figure in as many days. Joan Ryan was dismissed as Labour's vice chairman and Mr Brown's envoy to Cyprus for calling for a leadership election.

Former minister Fiona Mactaggart on Sunday became the latest MP to publicly call for a change of leadership. "I think we should give a chance to someone else to take over - I really do," she said in an interview with BBC1's Politics Show. She urged senior ministers to show "courage", expressing confidence that there were some who supported the rebels privately.