Labour activists want Brown to go
Updated on 06 June 2009
They cheered him once, but today a Channel 4 News poll of Labour grassroots members suggests even they think Gordon Brown should go. Victoria Macdonald reports.
Although activists are usually more loyal to the leader than even Labour MPs, an exclusive poll of the Labour party membership suggests there are now more who want Gordon Brown to resign before the next election than there are supporters.
The vast majority of the grassroots expect to lose if Gordon Brown leads them into the election. More think they can win under Alan Johnson, and a majority think they would do better under Tony Blair.
Gordon Brown insists he will not be deflected by the continuing questions over his leadership. But the message tonight from his own members in the Channel 4 News poll could not be clearer: almost half want him to go. Government loyalists have been trying to rally support around the prime minister, insisting there is no mood for a leadership challenge.
Tonight, with Labour poised for another humiliating set of results in the Euro elections, our regular panel analyses the poll and debates how long Gordon Brown should keep his job.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy spoke to the new transport secretary Lord Adonis and asked him for his reaction to our poll's findings - that more Labour party members want the prime minister to go than want him to stay.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy discusses these findings with Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, who yesterday described the Cabinet as "at best cowardly and dithering" for sticking by Gordon Brown; David Hill, head of communications at Downing Street under Tony Blair and George Bridges who was David Cameron's political director and worked for John Major before that.
