Blears exit could spell end for Brown

This may just be the beginning of the end of Gordon Brown's premiership. Cabinet minister Hazel Blears has announced she is standing down from the government. And there is a feeling in Westminster that there may yet be more to follow.

Her move comes on the heels of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's announcement on Tuesday that she was standing down from the Cabinet along with two other frontbenchers who also quit. Today, even the left-leaning Guardian newspaper called for Brown to be show the exit.

Both women were expected to be victims of Brown's looming reshuffle because of their involvement in the expenses scandal. But by pre-empting their own sackings they have seriously undermined the Prime Minister's authority and thrown him onto the back foot.

The speculation in Westminster is now focusing on whether Blears will be the one to finally wield the knife and finish off Brown, perhaps in the same way Sir Geoffrey Howe signed Margaret Thatcher's political death warrant with a devastating speech in the Commons.

She is a Blairite and was stung by Brown's description of her expenses behaviour - in which she failed to pay capital gains tax on a property sale - as "totally unacceptable".

It is also said she was furious at suggestions Downing Street was engaged in a black propaganda campaign against her.

Whether this will be enough to push her into moving against Brown and whether that would prove fatal for the Prime Minister is now the big question in Westminster.

But, with only a day to go to crucial local and European elections, the betting is that Gordon Brown is facing the real prospect of a concerted attempt to remove him.