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| Clarke issues fresh Brown warning | Clarke issues fresh Brown warning |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| Ex-home secretary Charles Clarke has said Gordon Brown has a matter of months to improve the standing of the Labour Party or quit as prime minister. | Ex-home secretary Charles Clarke has said Gordon Brown has a matter of months to improve the standing of the Labour Party or quit as prime minister. |
| Mr Clarke, a long-standing "sceptic" of Mr Brown as PM, told the BBC "many, many, many people" shared his concerns. | Mr Clarke, a long-standing "sceptic" of Mr Brown as PM, told the BBC "many, many, many people" shared his concerns. |
| He spoke as Mr Brown prepares to continue his autumn fightback with a speech to business leaders. | He spoke as Mr Brown prepares to continue his autumn fightback with a speech to business leaders. |
| Schools secretary and key Brown ally Ed Balls dismissed the attack as "Charles being Charles". | |
| Mr Clarke has a track record of criticising Mr Brown and was one of only a handful of Labour MPs not to publicly back his bid for the premiership last year. | |
| At the time he was touted as a potential leader himself, but he ruled out a challenge to Mr Brown in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme. | |
| Asked if he would be prepared to stand against the PM as a "stalking horse" - to flush out more heavyweight challengers - if the government's standing did not improve, he said: "I wouldn't do that myself - and I wouldn't counsel anybody else to do it either. | |
| "The party's constitutional procedures in this kind of circumstance are very cumbersome, they would lead to bitter division and bitter problems, and I certainly don't think it's the kind of thing I would be ready to do and, as I say, I certainly wouldn't encourage anybody else to do it either. | |
| "I think it would be much better for the party and the country to come to a view about how the change should take place." | |
| He said he decided to launch his latest attack on Mr Brown, in an article for the New Statesman, because he wanted the question of the PM's future "to be openly discussed - rather than discussed behind hands the whole time, in a way which isn't good for public politics at all in my view". |