Plea for unity to begin Labour week

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Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband - brother of the man tipped as Mr Brown's most likely successor, Foreign Secretary David Miliband - will tell delegates they have a "responsibility" to focus on the needs of the country, not internal in-fighting.

He will accuse Tory leader David Cameron of hijacking Labour's language of fairness, compassion and social justice as a smokescreen for a Tory vision of society which is "closed, unfair and unequal".

And he will argue the only party that can actually deliver the fairness which voters want is "the Labour Party, led by Gordon Brown, the same man today as he was in the Treasury when he spent 10 years fighting to make our country fairer."

Mr Brown goes into the annual gathering a beleaguered figure, in the wake of a ministerial resignation, a backbench revolt, a week of chaos on the financial markets and polls putting Labour as much as 28 points behind the Tories.

Just a year after his triumphant first conference as leader, when he flirted with the idea of a snap election to capitalise on soaring poll ratings, he now needs to deliver the speech of his life simply to preserve his position and give Labour a chance of dragging itself back into contention for a General Election showdown little more than 18 months away.

The prospect of a formal challenge to Mr Brown's leadership at Manchester was blown away when Labour's ruling National Executive Committee rejected calls from a dozen MPs for nomination papers to be sent out ahead of the conference.

And the turmoil on the financial markets may have dampened potential rebels' appetite for rocking the boat this week.

But any respite he earns may be short-lived unless he can deliver a marked improvement in Labour fortunes over the coming weeks, as well as victory in the forthcoming Glenrothes by-election.

Mr Brown faces a challenge to his authority on the conference's first day as delegates decide whether to allow a debate on the conference floor on a windfall tax on utility companies.