Local election loss cuts Brit PM

Britain's ruling Labour Party has lost one of its safest parliamentary seats, deepening doubts in its own ranks about Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ability to win the next election.

Defeat left Brown facing a bleak weekend as the party's main policy-making forum met to try to work out how to win back voters disillusioned by a string of political gaffes, rising inflation and a slowing economy.

Adding to the gloom, data published on Friday showed second quarter growth slowed to its weakest rate in three years as housebuilding slumped, dragging the annual growth rate down to 1.6 percent from 2.3 percent in the first quarter.

The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) snatched a slim 365-vote majority in the Glasgow East constituency with a 22.5 percent swing that overturned the 13,500 majority enjoyed by Labour at the 2005 election.

If that swing against Labour was repeated in a general election even Brown could lose his seat.

In more bad news for Brown, a poll for The Independent newspaper on Saturday showed the opposition Conservatives opening a 22-point lead over Labour.

That would give the Conservatives a landslide victory at the next general election, which Brown must call by May 2010.

The Glasgow result, the latest in a series of local and parliamentary election defeats for Labour, raised questions about whether Brown will face a challenge to his 13-month-old leadership of the party.

"We need a new start. We need to look fundamentally at the policy direction for the next general election and I think we need to have that debate around a leadership election, with or without Gordon (Brown)," Labour lawmaker Graham Stringer told the BBC.

The Guardian newspaper said in its Saturday edition that discussions were under way at cabinet level on whether to seek Brown's "orderly resignation" while The Independent said Labour legislators were urging senior ministers to tell Brown to quit.

Labour's defeat prompted Conservatives to demand a general election after the summer and sparked an inquest into Labour's direction among party members and trade union backers.

Union leader Paul Kenny said the debate over Brown's leadership had to be settled.

"Either there is confidence in Gordon Brown as leader ... or this will rumble on ... and we will remain a divided organisation," he said.

Brown's popularity has slumped in the 13 months since he replaced Tony Blair, who had led Labour to three successive election victories since 1997.

Brown pledged to battle on.

"I think my task is to get on with the job of taking us through these difficult economic times," he said.

- Reuters