Brown faces leadership challenge call

A senior member of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ruling Labour Party said on Saturday he should face a leadership challenge, piling more pressure on a premier struggling with economic downturn and weak poll ratings. Joan Ryan, a Labour vice chairman, said Brown's future as leader was being discussed privately at all levels of the party and it was time for a leadership election.
Brown, who took over from Tony Blair last year and does not have to hold a national election until May 2010, is trying to re-launch his premiership after months of speculation about his fate following a series of crushing local election defeats. The former finance minister trails the revitalised Conservatives and faces public disquiet over rising household bills, a housing market slump and a gloomy economic outlook.
Ryan's call for a leadership challenge came a week before the party's annual conference, seen as a crucial event in Brown's planned fightback after months of negative headlines. "I want a leadership election, I want a choice of candidates, I want to have a debate," she told BBC radio. "We need to have this debate about the direction and leadership of our country out in the open now.
It is happening at all levels of the party and it should be happening in a more open and honest way." Brown's opponents within Labour say their party has no chance of winning the election if he stays as leader. After 11 years in power, Labour lags the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls by about 20 points.
The Conservatives' Shadow Welfare Secretary Chris Grayling said Labour was in "a state of civil war" and called for an early election. On Friday, Brown sacked a member of his government after she called for a leadership contest. Siobhain McDonagh, a party official, said a "huge number" of Labour legislators wanted a leadership contest, a claim strongly disputed by party leaders.
Brown ally and Schools Secretary Ed Balls played down talk of a leadership challenge and said Labour could still bounce back and win the next election. "You never know what is going to happen in politics. He (Brown) might get run over by a bus. But I think there is very little chance of the Labour Party deciding it wants to change its leader," he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.