Gordon Brown put the immediate threat to his leadership behind him this morning as he chaired the first meeting of his reshuffled Cabinet.
David Miliband, however — once tipped as Mr Brown's most likely successor — made plain that Alan Johnson, was the leading candidate to replace the Prime Minister.
"The Labour Party does not want a new leader, there is no vacancy, there is no challenger. The leading contender, Alan Johnson [new Home Secretary], is backing the Prime Minister to the hilt. So that is that," Mr Miliband said.
Mr Brown's penitent performance at a private meeting with all his MPs last night appeared to have been enough to see off a threatened "peasants' revolt" of backbenchers, after an anticipated Cabinet coup never materialised.
James Purnell, the former Work and Pensions Secretary whose resignation last Thursday triggered fears of a Cabinet coup, indicated this morning that while he had no regrets about leaving his job and criticising the Prime Minister as an electoral liability, he was not planning to continue to snipe.
"I said what I said, I stand by it. Of course I can be happy if I turn out to be proven wrong and Gordon Brown leads the Labour Party to victory at the next election," said Mr Purnell.
Mr Brown has however been weakened by the latest upheavals. He has suffered a torrent of negative media coverage about his faltering handling of the expenses scandal and Labour's appalling results in the council and European elections.
His authority has been challenged by the resignations of nine ministers, several of them warning that Mr Brown's poor performance would cost Labour the next General Election.
Looking around his Cabinet table this morning, Mr Brown's eye will have fallen on several ministers — including Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and Mr Miliband, the Foreign Secretary — who openly defied him by refusing point blank to be moved from their jobs to enable him to promote Ed Balls, his most loyal supporter.
Among the most toxic allegations against Mr Brown have been the criticisms of his aloof and bullying style of leadership - voiced most recently by Jane Kennedy, who stood down as Environment Minister yesterday saying that she could not pledge loyalty to a leader who used smears and rumour to undermine colleagues.
"It is a style, a type of politics that I have fought against all my working life since battling against the Militant Tendency here in Liverpool," said Ms Kennedy. "It's not a kind of politics that I want to be associated with."
Last night Mr Brown frankly admitted at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party that he had weaknesses and would have to do better.
Six of his sternest critics urged him to quit, including former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, but the mood of the meeting came down in Mr Brown's favour, particularly after David Blunkett, another former Home Secretary, called for an end to the bloodletting and ordered critics to put up or shut up within 24 hours.
Ben Bradshaw, the new Culture Secretary, said this morning: "I think he has acknowledged that the style of leadership needs to change. I think he has acknowledged that the way that No 10 has been operating has not been in the interests either of him or of the Labour Government, that he needs to behave in a more collegiate way.
"Those are things I think that people will welcome."
Lord Adonis, another new recruit to the Cabinet, said that last night's meeting had produced a strong mood of support for Mr Brown and John McFall, the influential chairman of the backbench Treasury Select Committee, criticised rebels for "navel-gazing" and "squabbling".
Source:The times
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