I’m not quitting, says Brown

The panic in Downing Street is now official. Gordon Brown did the rounds of the TV studios this morning to deny that he is going to stand down before the general election. "I am starting on a job that I mean to continue," he said on Sky News.

His advisers believe he had to stamp on the story that he was going to quit before it gained hold. But the London Evening Standard has refused to see it lie down, reporting that Labour MPs have put Brown on a year's probation.

The Standard claims that David Miliband or Ed Balls could be asked to step in if the MPs are dissatisfied with Brown's progress by April 2009. This suggests that the 'Men in Grey Suits' will make a return and tell Brown to fall on his sword.

There is not a chance of this happening, of course. Imagine the scene in 2009: Labour, behind the Tories in the polls, are looking at the prospect of defeat and decide that they have only one option - to replace Brown with a younger leader and put off the election until 2010. It would leave the new leader with just 12 months to convince the country that he was a better Prime Minister than either Brown or Cameron.

Brown boarded his plane this afternoon with his wife Sarah for their US trip together. He knows he will be able to hold off the critics if he can weather the financial storm. "I'm a person who has set the Labour Party on a course of making the long-term decisions for the future of our country," he said. "I've been through these economic difficulties before and I think eventually people do see you are trying to do the right things by them."

His problem is that he is putting his fate - and that of countless Labour MPs - in the hands of the bankers who have frittered away the boom years. No wonder David Cameron is going round with the smile of the cat who got the cream.

THE MOLE: PM UNDER SIEGE

FIRST POSTED APRIL 15, 2008