Brown bullish despite new poll low

Gordon Brown has brushed aside questions over his leadership, saying his relationship with "Dave" Miliband is "fine". Talking to reporters for the first time since Miliband’s article in the Guardian which was widely seen as a bid for the leadership, the Prime Minister said he would unveil next month plans to help those hardest hit by the credit crunch and refused to comment on whether he might shake up his cabinet in an autumn reshuffle.

"The article he [Miliband] wrote in the Guardian was an article any member of the Cabinet could have written - or I could have written," said Brown, before going on to claim Labour would "expose the differences between the two parties" and win the next election. The prime minister's prediction comes despite a new Mori/Ipsos poll giving the Tories a 24 point lead over Labour, who at 24 per cent have hit a 30-year low.