Politicians from Britain's ruling Labour party, an ex-minister and newspaper editorials kept up a chorus of dissent against Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday, calling for his troubled leadership to be challenged.
Noises of revolt have been echoing within the Labour party for months, with Brown perceived by polls to lack vision and decisiveness in the job since succeeding Tony Blair last year.
At a time of economic crisis, with growth slowing and the housing and banking markets in a slump, the former finance minister is also viewed as having failed to take bold action to keep the economy on a sound footing.
The influential Sunday Times newspaper, owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, said the only choice Brown now had was to try to silence his critics by putting himself up for a leadership contest, tackling the issue head on.
"For the good of country and party, the prime minister should tell his critics to put up or shut up," the newspaper, largely supportive of Labour over the past decade, wrote in an editorial. "Let us have a Labour leadership contest." More senior Labour members of parliament have called for Brown to go, saying a change is needed as Labour prepares to hold its annual conference next week and before an election due by mid-2010. Brown has sacked two senior Labour MPs in the past three days after they said he should face a leadership challenge.
A former minister and Brown special envoy, Barry Gardiner, added his voice to the rumblings of discord on Sunday by saying that Brown had squandered his international credibility and that Britain needed a leader with vision.
"The public has stopped listening to Gordon Brown," Gardiner wrote in an opinion editorial. "We have vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand.
"The tragedy for those of us who nominated the prime minister is that since achieving power he appears to have forgotten what it was he once wanted to do with it."
While Brown languishes far behind in the polls and is under intense pressure from elements within his party, there is little sign of revolt in the upper ranks of the cabinet, which makes a leadership challenge less likely, at least for now. Supporters emphasise that Brown is trying to guide the country through tough economic times and that anyone else in his position would find themselves equally under pressure.
There are also no senior Labour leaders who appear at this stage to have the inclination or the courage to put themselves forward to challenge Brown's 15-month leadership. Those that are mentioned as possible contenders - such as Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Justice Secretary Jack Straw - have either repeatedly ruled themselves out or are seen as out-and-out Brown loyalists.
But as with previous leadership challenges, including that of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, stalking horses can emerge to keep the issue at the top of the agenda and push Brown's hand.
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