Ministers rally around Brown after Clarke comments

Following Charles Clarke's assesment of Gordon Brown's premiership, the former Home Secretary was criticised by Schools Secretary Ed Balls and former minister Nigel Griffiths.

Mr Balls, a key ally of Gordon Brown, told GMTV: "It's not the first time Charles has made those kind of comments. I think it's Charles being Charles.

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"I don't think that's where the debate will be when we get to the next general election.

"If you go back to 1986 when the economy was in difficulty, there were people saying the same things about Margaret Thatcher but she went on to win the next election.

"What we've got to do is focus on the big issues and the real divides and the real divide is going to be between Labour and Conservative on the big issues facing the future of our country."

Mr Griffiths expressed his dismay at the intervention by Mr Clarke.

He said: "Yet again Charles has diverted attention away from all the positive things our Labour Government is doing - like the extra help we are giving to homebuyers, the extra money to pensioners to help with fuel costs, the action taken to freeze petrol duty."

He told BBC Radio 4's Today: "It is not as if Charles has any alternative policies."

He added: "Charles' problem is this is not the first time that he has gone for the old Dad's Army 'We are all doomed' without coming up with any real alternative.

"He sort of lobs a grenade into the party and then backs away and he did have his chance ... in 2007 to come up with alternative policies, and he hasn't come up with them."

Amid the furore caused by Mr Clarke's intervention, the Prime Minister will attempt to continue his political fightback in a keynote speech to the Scottish CBI in Glasgow tonight.

He will set out his analysis of the current economic problems facing Britain and the wider world.

Mr Brown is expected to spell out how the Government will develop new policies to cope with the "unique" economic circumstances of rocketing energy prices combined with a global credit crunch.

He will also outline longer-term measures to end Britain's over-dependence on oil.

Gordon Brown dodged reporters' questions about his leadership when he arrived in Liverpool to address the North West Economics Conference before heading to Scotland to talk to the Scottish CBI tonight.

A reporter was repeatedly manhandled away from Mr Brown by undercover police officers.

And later at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool a Special Branch officer and two uniformed police officers interrupted a reporter's interview with Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport.

Mr Burnham said he was unaware of Mr Clarke's comments so declined to respond.

The reporter was forced to give his details to the police.

"There is, however, a deep and widely shared concern - which does not derive from ideology - that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are, combined with a determination that we will not permit that to happen."

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw dismissed Mr Clarke's claims as "Westminster tittle tattle".

"I would be extremely surprised if all those Labour colleagues who supported Gordon Brown just over a year ago with no opposition because of his outstanding record as Chancellor of the Exchequer had changed their minds in the space of a year because of what most accept are very difficult global economic circumstances," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

However Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, a former Labour frontbencher who remains supportive of Mr Brown, acknowledged that his position could come under threat if the party's fortunes did not pick up in the coming months.

"If things don't improve and we do badly in the local government elections next year followed quickly afterwards by the whole of the UK participating in European parliamentary elections, then I think there could well be in June of next year a review of the situation and pressure on Gordon to go," he told The World at One.