'He is the most unpopular PM since Chamberlain'

A leading Labour rebel claimed that Gordon Brown is now the most unloved Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain just before he was deposed in 1940.

In the most savage public attack on the premier to date, former Home Office minister George Howarth told BBC2's Newsnight: "No one can remember a time since Neville Chamberlain, after Hitler invaded Norway, that anyone was so unpopular. And we can't allow that to continue."

Mr Howarth, one of the first MPs to demand the right to challenge Mr Brown, denied that a plot to unseat him was under way, and insisted he did not know MP David Cairns had been planning to resign.

Cabinet Office minister Phil Hope said today Mr Howarth's remarks were "extraordinary". "I hope there won't be more resignations," he told BBC Radio 4. But when it was put to him that the PM was partly to blame for the housing market collapse after "letting rip" the homes boom, Mr Hope replied: "Indeed."