Brown Tries To Save Job at Labor Party Conference
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
London — As Prime Minister Brown tries put down a mutiny, 15,000 Labor Party activists and lawmakers gather in Manchester today with their eyes on potential successors.
Calls by more than a dozen Labor lawmakers this week for a vote to replace Mr. Brown have put Cabinet newcomers David Miliband and Ed Balls on the spot as they jostle with Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, and other leadership elders for backing should Mr. Brown be forced out.
“These relatively young ministers are well regarded by their colleagues, though the public find it quite hard to pick out any of them from the pack,” the chief executive officer of pollster Populus Ltd., Andrew Cooper, said. “They need to start changing that now because time will rapidly catch up with them.”
At the five-day annual conference, the ministers will walk a tightrope. They have to display loyalty to Mr. Brown, 57, while signaling readiness to take his job as David Cameron’s Conservative Party enjoys its highest popularity ratings since Margaret Thatcher’s third term 20 years ago.
