Cabinet will meet in the Midlands
Beleaguered premier Gordon Brown will take the whole of the Cabinet to the West Midlands next month for its first meeting since questions about his leadership reached crisis point.
Beleaguered premier Gordon Brown will take the whole of the Cabinet to the West Midlands next month for its first meeting since questions about his leadership reached crisis point.
The Prime Minister and his top team will also get out and about in the region to meet the public in an initiative designed to put his leadership back on track. After the cabinet meeting at an as yet unspecified location, ministers will attend a series of events to "engage" with the public.
The West Midlands cabinet meeting will involve a major logistical and security operation because of the numbers of senior ministers and officials who will be involved.
It is likely to be followed by similar meetings over the coming months in different parts of the country, said Downing Street.
News of the London decamp came as former cabinet ministers planned a series of announcements during August to fill the "policy vacuum" inside 10 Downing Street.
Ex-ministers including Charles Clarke and Stephen Byers will increase the pressure on the Prime Minister by calling on Labour to refresh itself in a thinly disguised demand for a change at the top.
The group will focus on policy rather than personalities, but their move will serve as a boost to Foreign Secretary David Miliband who last week set out his own manifesto for a Labour recovery.
Mr Brown's standing took another hit yesterday with the leak of a memo from Tony Blair in which the former premier slammed a "lamentable confusion of tactics and strategy" at the heart of his successor's administration.
The memo, penned after Labour's autumn conference last year, said Mr Brown had "junked the (Blair) policy agenda but had nothing to put in its place".
But it was the timing of the leak which has enraged the Prime Minister's supporters and strengthened their belief that there is a Blairite conspiracy designed to remove Mr Brown as Labour leader.
l Mr Brown is shaping up for the battles ahead with the help of a female personal fitness trainer, who has been putting the PM through his paces with daily workouts while he is on holiday.
