Miliband backtracks after TV 'gaffe'

Cabinet minister David Miliband made an apparent gaffe by suggesting on TV that Gordon Brown would make a less popular Prime Minister than Tony Blair.

Within six months or a year of a handover of power, people would be saying that they "can't stand" the Chancellor and want Mr Blair back, the Environment Secretary predicted.

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Then Mr Miliband swiftly backtracked, insisting that he believed Mr Brown would make a "very successful" PM.

He said he had simply been trying to make the point that whoever was in power could expect to be the target of brickbats from the public.

Mr Miliband has been widely tipped as a future Labour leader, but has ruled himself out of the contest expected when Mr Blair steps down later this year and has publicly given his backing to the Chancellor.

But speaking on BBC1's Question Time last night, he said: "I predict that when I come back on this programme in six months or a year's time, people will be saying, "wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back, because we can't stand that Gordon Brown"."

Asked to explain his comment, Mr Miliband said: "Whoever's in, it's one of those things in government, people have a whack at you."

He insisted he was not suggesting that Mr Brown would be unpopular as Labour leader. "I think Gordon Brown will be the Prime Minister," he said.

"I think he will be a very successful Prime Minister, but I think that in politics it is at election time that people make their judgments."