GORDON BROWN'S leadership remained under intense scrutiny today as more bad opinion poll ratings helped fuel continued speculation about plots to oust him.
One survey showed more than one in five Labour supporters thought Opposition leader David Cameron would make a better Prime Minister while another gave the Tories a 19-point lead.
Senior Labour figures have been forced to rally to his support.
Former deputy PM John Prescott demanded an end to "pointless" manoeuvring – and insisted no other minister was "anywhere near" capable of taking over at Number 10.
"With respect, none of them at the present moment has anywhere near the skills and experience, nationally and internationally, to lead this great party and country as we tackle these unprecedented major global problems," he said.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw, whose allies were among those said to be canvassing dissenters, backed the PM and said any challenge would be a "big mistake".
Widespread reports of behind-the-scenes plotting have emerged in the wake of last week's catastrophic by-election defeat by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Glasgow East.
The ComRes poll for The Independent found most voters (53 per cent) believed the Conservative Party was ready for office, with 46 per cent saying the same about Mr Cameron.
Around a third of voters (34 per cent) said they still believed Mr Brown was the better man to lead the country, but 22 per cent of his own party's backers disagreed.
A small crumb of comfort for the Prime Minister came with evidence that, despite Labour's Glasgow East meltdown, Scottish voters still preferred him to the Conservative's Mr Cameron.
The full article contains 279 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
