The Rubicon: Is there really no way back for Gordon Brown?

His party's poll ratings are flatlining at some of the lowest levels since the war and he has just lost a "safe" seat at a bitterly fought by-election. To cap it all, his party is already beginning to discuss life without him.

Sound familiar? Britain and the Labour Party have experienced much in the quarter of a century since Michael Foot crashed ignominiously to defeat. But, as Gordon Brown plumbs yet another low in his prime ministerial career, his more grizzled colleagues wake this morning with a horribly familiar concern. The Labour Party is once again facing the prospect of a catastrophic general election defeat with a troubled leader at the helm.

"Michael Foot was a kindly and cultured man, as well as a brilliant orator, but he simply did not look like a potential prime minister," Mr Foot's deputy, Denis Healey, explained.

No matter that, elsewhere in his diaries, Mr Healey described the young Gordon Brown as "exceptional"; if the "lost leader" was a member of the Cabinet today, he would struggle to recognise that brilliance amid the indecision and lack of direction that echoes the party's worst days under Mr Foot. Suddenly, Gordon Brown does not look like a PM.

In line with the convention on serving prime ministers, Mr Brown didn't even set foot within the boundaries of Crewe and Nantwich during little over two weeks of concentrated campaigning that led up to the catastrophe of early Friday. But the crushing defeat Labour suffered at the hands of the heir to a shoe-repair empire owed everything to the Prime Minister's performance since he took over the premiership last summer.

The decline has been dramatic. Last summer, in the immediate aftermath of his arrival in Downing Street in succession to Tony Blair and the subsequent thwarted terror attacks, Mr Brown's poll ratings soared. He had unexpectedly managed to assuage the hardened Blairites still mourning the loss of their leader, and open up a double-digit lead over the Tories.

Today, after losing Labour's first by-election to the Conservatives for more than 25 years, the Prime Minister's fortunes have dramatically reversed. A series of political disasters, including the abortive plans for an autumn election and the abolition of the 10p rate of income tax, have transformed him into an unpopular leader, saddled with a reputation as a ditherer – pinned on him by incessant Tory campaigning – leading an increasingly disunited group of ministers and MPs.

Labour has already slumped to its lowest poll rating since 1983, when, of course, it was led by Mr Foot. Polls can change, as David Cameron has discovered as Labour's seven-point lead has turned into a double-digit deficit within only eight months.

"There are parallels with Foot: an unpopular leader, unpopular policies and the worst election campaign [in Crewe]," said pollster Sir Robert Worcester, who founded Mori and worked with the Labour Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "But Brown has got no policy as unpopular as unilateral nuclear disarmament. He will depend on the economy; if that doesn't improve, he is dead in the water."

While his predecessor had to handle the open warfare of left-right splits and the exodus to the newly formed Social Democrats, Mr Brown must struggle with the as-yet-unseen enemy of behind-the-scenes agitation.

"Backbenchers are an anxious bunch at the moment," a senior source in the Government whips office, charged with keeping Labour's increasingly agitated backbench MPs in line, admitted last night. "And so they should be. It shows they understand we have got problems.

"Gordon is a similar politician to who he was six to 12 months ago. What has changed is the world around us. We have been too slow to recognise the difficulties. If we can show that we can respond, then I think things will improve."

Together with the demand, reinforced by an interminable series of opinion polls, for policies designed to aid the economic needs of the electorate, Labour whips point to the need, above all, to present a united front. The party's latest internal polling has amply demonstrated that voters want Labour to show that it is agreed on what is required to steer the country through what is increasingly accepted to be a global economic downturn.

"Disunited parties don't win elections," the whips' source said. "If we can prove that we are unified, we are halfway there."

But most Labour MPs now accept that the Government is moving towards a crisis situation; what divides them ever more sharply is whether Mr Brown is the cause, and what should be done to resolve it. They are steadily drifting into line within three distinct groups, those who want him to remain at all costs through to a hardening core of refuseniks who believe Labour cannot win unless he goes. The supporters remain at around a third of the Parliamentary Labour Party; the opponents are at least one in five – and growing.

What is not yet apparent is whether or when Mr Brown's most bitter enemies will mobilise against him. On Friday, at the moment of the Prime Minister's maximum weakness, only the obscure former minister Graham Stringer felt emboldened to step forward.

"One of the ways of starting the renewal of the Labour Party and the Government is to have the debate that we should have had around the leadership last year," the Manchester MP said during what became a tour of studios throughout the day.

"I hope and would urge a senior member of the Cabinet to say that they are willing to stand against Gordon, so that we can have that debate."

The group to which Mr Stringer belongs, that band of ultras eager to see the back of the leader, undoubtedly includes at least one "senior member of the Cabinet". A number of them were distressed at the Prime Minister's apparent inability to recognise the dangers facing the party, during a political session of Cabinet last Tuesday. One source said several ministers came away from the meeting "utterly despondent", because no post-Crewe strategy had been laid out.

Previously, the 70 or so anti-Brownites have maintained a quiet, informal presence, comparing names of supporters and discreetly discussing the post-Brown landscape. The most loyal Blairites, who pointedly note that Mr Brown's predecessor would never have allowed such a situation to drift into crisis territory, had been working on a strategy that envisaged potential challenges to Mr Brown's authority after he had spent a year in office. After the events of the last week, they are plotting with more purpose – and the expectation of swift developments. The alternative to a coup, they now argue, is electoral disaster of a kind not seen since 1983.

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man," one of Mr Blair's closest former ministers observed archly last night, confirming Mr Stringer's hope that a member of Mr Brown's own Cabinet could be encouraged to stand against him.

There is now an intriguing sub-plot developing between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, and the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, the two strongest Blairite contenders in any likely leadership contest.

In spring 2007, when MPs were casting around for a possible challenger to Mr Brown, there was an "unspoken agreement" among Blairites that it would fall to Mr Miliband. After much arm-twisting, he refused to run for fear of being crushed by Mr Brown. Yet now the issue is back on the agenda among the "Primrose Hill" set of young Blairites. Mr Purnell has let it be known that he would "probably" run if there were a contest.

Mr Purnell, who at 38 is four years younger than his potential rival, has recruited Tony Blair's former speech-writer Phil Collins – triggering speculation that he is stepping up leadership preparations. Mr Collins refused to return to Downing Street last year to help Mr Brown, arguing that "a monkey with a typewriter" could improve his speeches.

Meanwhile the Foreign Secretary has approached Jonathan Kestenbaum, the chief executive of Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), to forge links with business in what was also seen as preparation for a possible leadership campaign.

In the meantime, the former minister Charles Clarke, a vocal critic of Mr Brown, has tried to convince Jon Cruddas, a leading moderniser on the left of the party, to run as a "stalking horse" against Mr Brown.

Mr Clarke is believed to have amassed enough names – 72 – for a possible challenge but needs an MP with broad support. Mr Cruddas, who worked in Downing Street as a link-man with the trade unions during Mr Blair's first term in office, has told friends he has been approached by Mr Clarke but is "not interested" in running.

However some MPs believe Mr Cruddas, who came third in last year's deputy leadership contest, can be persuaded if things get worse. In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, the MP said: "Until and unless we really work through what is going on here we are going to big collision with the electorate at the next election.

"We risk a disintegration of an electoral coalition, of the Middle England voters we gained from 1994 to 1997 and traditional working-class voters. We now need to be asking a different question. It should be: why are these people, in elections in Crewe or London, more emotionally in tune with large swathes of the electorate than us?

"Why do we appear tone deaf to these concerns? There is something palpable out there in terms of people's worries about their future."

The instability surrounding Mr Brown caused the former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett to break nearly a year's silence after leaving the Cabinet. She said the PM could still lead Labour to a fourth term but first needed to show voters he had "changed direction".

She told the BBC: "Provided we listen to the electorate, and learn from their clear desire to see a change of course, there's nothing whatsoever to say the result of the next general election is set."

Drawing further similarities with Labour's history, Mr Healey recalls that Mr Foot briefly considered standing down in his favour at the start of the 1983 electoral campaign, partly in response to opinion polls that suggested 49 per cent of voters would be more likely to support Labour if he did. Despite pressure from colleagues including Neil Kinnock, Mr Foot decided to stay put, and Labour went on to secure only 28 per cent of the vote.

Nevertheless, many of Mr Brown's colleagues believe a similar change could not be contemplated this time around. One cabinet minister said a change of leader "would show we have taken leave of our senses", but added that "if Gordon fell under a bus" then the party would need a uniting candidate, such as Alan Johnson, to see Labour to the next election.

The Prime Minister is safe for the immediate future because a clear alternative has not been found, although one cabinet source maintains that they "cannot find anyone who believes Gordon is there for the long term". But the source added: "No one is coming up with alternative solutions, therefore they don't know what the solution is.

"Should we have a quick change to minimise the chaos?"

There is growing speculation that a move could be made before the summer recess – possibly around the time he marks his first year in Downing Street, on 27 June.

"Anniversaries are always a good time to do things," said another cabinet source.

In the absence of definite signs that Mr Brown will be forced out in the near future, some cabinet ministers now believe their best chance is for him to resign of his own accord – a move which appears even less likely than an early coup. A man who waited for 11 years – and decades before that – to take the job will not give it up in the face of such complaints. Ultimately, a departure with dignity might appear a more palatable option than effectively being "sacked", but the Brown camp maintain that they are a long way away from that point.

In the meantime, the Brown bunker is struggling on with an attempt to fight back from the series of blows it has sustained in recent weeks, with the most likely changes being more help for motorists who face rises in fuel and vehicle excise duties.

There is a suggestion of having a "minister for the Today programme" who would be a consistent voice to robustly defend the premier. John Reid performed a similar role for Tony Blair. The idea was not rubber-stamped, but on Friday morning, deputy leader Harriet Harman was on the Today programme, as well as touring the TV studios.

Other suggestions include simplifying the message into two or three points – rather than a constant stream of initiatives and "bombarding" the public with a pre-legislative Queen's Speech. The suggestion underlines the difficulty of Mr Brown's position: when he responds to a demand for action, he is often criticised for doing the wrong thing.

The most significant change could be a shift in the strategic relationship with the Tories, effectively underlining the poll findings by putting Labour into a subservient position. "We have to make the decision that we see ourselves as the official underdogs," said one No 10 aide. "We need to move from everything we do electorally being a referendum on the last 11 years to the choices people have between Labour and the Tory programme.

It might appear unpalatable for a politician who has struggled for so long to return Labour to a dominant position in British politics. But it could turn out to be the only way for him to rescue his Government, his party and, ultimately, his career.

Reasons to be glum

1. Tories lost Eastbourne to the Liberal Democrats with a 20 per cent swing in October 1990; Margaret Thatcher was kicked out a month later.

2. The £2.7bn tax giveaway during the Crewe campaign made no difference.

3. Gordon Brown has few allies left in the Cabinet.

4. More than 100 Labour MPs fear losing their seats.

5. Forty-six per cent of people believe David Cameron would be a better PM than Brown.

Reasons to be cheerful

1. There is no clear frontrunner to succeed Gordon Brown.

2. Lib Dems won Leicester South with a 21.5 per cent swing in the 2004 by-election, but Labour won the general election – and the seat – a year later.

3. Labour Party rules make it very difficult to topple a leader.

4. There could be an upturn in the economy.

5. Brown has a bigger majority than John Major.

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