PM rallies party after failed coup
Gordon Brown has met key Cabinet colleagues as he prepared for his first appearance before the Parliamentary Labour Party since last week's failed coup attempt.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who was reportedly one of the senior figures who plotters were hoping would back their coup bid, said ministers at the meeting are "absolutely clear" that Mr Brown would lead them into this year's general election.
He dismissed suggestions that he was lukewarm in his expressions of support for the Prime Minister following Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt's call for a secret ballot on his leadership last week.
And he hailed Mr Brown as a man of "enormous strengths... strong values... and real determination to do what is right for people".
Mr Miliband has come under fire from some Labour backbenchers, who regard his seven-hour delay in responding publicly to Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt's letter last Wednesday as an indication that he may have been weighing up its implications for his own leadership ambitions.
Morecambe and Lunesdale MP Geraldine Smith accused him of being "immature", telling the BBC: "I think David Miliband is probably finished as a potential leadership candidate.
"Gordon Brown is Prime Minister and he is going to lead us into the general election. But at any future stage, which may be many years off, if there is a leadership election I think people will remember David Miliband. He hasn't covered himself in glory, he has behaved in quite an immature way. I think that Labour Party members are very angry about what's gone on over the last few days."
Mr Miliband insisted that he did not respond more forcefully to last week's challenge to Mr Brown's position simply because he did not want to "overreact to a letter from two members of the PLP".
The Foreign Secretary told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "We got on with the job, but we are absolutely clear that we are going to go into the election under Gordon's leadership.
"We are determined to learn the best lessons of what Labour has done over the last 12 years and we also recognise - as I think Gordon and Alistair (Darling) have done more than anyone over the last couple of years - how the world has changed and how it requires the instincts of progressive government but also new ideas."
