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Neil Kinnock says rebels 'lack the guts to mount challenge'
Brown insists he is 'focusing on the task in hand'
Pressure mounts as now Caroline Spelman calls for General Election
Gordon Brown's hopes of political survival suffered a fresh blow tonight as leaked emails revealed Lord Mandelson believed the Prime Minister could not win the next General Election.
In the emails, published by a Sunday newspaper, Lord Mandelson was said to have advised that voters were put off Mr Brown because they thought he was 'angry'.
The emails were sent in January last year, before Lord Mandelson's return to government, according to the News of the World.
Lord Mandelson was also said to have expressed concern that Mr Brown was too preoccupied with celebrity gimmicks, warning 'strategic policy formulation' is more important than 'telling people you watch the X-Factor'.
The emails were said to have been sent to former Labour spin doctor Derek Draper, who was also embroiled in the controversy over the plan by ex Downing Street aide Damian McBride to smear leading Tories.
Lord Mandelson tonight denied making the claims but their publication will deliver a shattering blow to the Prime Minister, still reeling from a series of ministerial resignations and disastrous local elections results.
The claims are particularly damaging as Lord Mandelson - once a sworn enemy of Mr Brown - is the man credited with staving off a Cabinet revolt by persuading key ministers to back the Prime Minister.
Lord Mandelson's jibe about Mr Brown's obsession with 'celebrity gimmicks' is likely to be seized upon as it is published just one day after Apprentice star Sir Alan Sugar was handed a peerage.
In a further setback for Mr Brown, a poll of Labour activists found tonight that almost half wanted him to stand down before the next General Election.
Government loyalists spent the day insisting that there was no mood in the party for a leadership challenge as they sought to rally support for the beleaguered Prime Minister.
But a YouGov poll of 800 Labour Party members for Channel 4 News found 47 per cent urging him to go before the election.
Peter Mandelson, pictured here laughing outside Downing Street yesterday,
and his former political aide Derek Draper (file photo)
Worringly for Brown, 21 per cent said he should quit immediately, and 53 per cent believed that they would fare better with Tony Blair in charge.
The PM is braced for a renewed attack by rebel MPs in the wake of an expected drubbing at the European elections, the results of which are revealed tomorrow night.
Former Cabinet minister Stephen Byers even warned last night that Brown's fate could be sealed by Tuesday.
But today, at the D-Day commemorations in France, Gordon Brown vowed to stay on as Prime Minister and to stick with policies he said will build the 'Britain of the future.'
'In these unprecedented times you are bound to have ups and downs in politics,' he told reporters in Normandy. 'But you have got to stick with the policies and make sure that they come through.
Labour loyalists, led by new Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw, warned today that there is no desire among the party grassroots for a bruising battle over the leadership.
Yesterday, Caroline Flint put herself at the head of the campaign to oust the Prime Minister after her gamble to hold out for a better job backfired.
Flouncing out of Government, the glamorous Europe Minister aimed a stiletto heel at her boss by accusing him of using her simply as ‘female window-dressing’.
Today Ben Bradshaw warned would-be Labour rebels that there was no mood among the party grassroots for a leadership challenge.
'I hope my Labour colleagues will now get the message from their Labour activists and supporters in their constituencies that they want people to rally round and unite and support the Government,' he told the BBC.
Caroline Flint's bitter departure yesterday capped an astonishing day that saw:
An emergency Cabinet reshuffle which tied in leadership rival Alan Johnson but saw re- treads, peers and relative unknowns elevated;
Twice-disgraced Lord Mandelson effectively becoming Deputy Prime Minister after containing a Cabinet rebellion;
Chancellor Alistair Darling winning his battle of wills with Mr Brown and staying in the Treasury;
Labour enduring catastrophic local election results, losing its heartland councils to the Tories;
Plotters denouncing ‘spineless’ ministers who accepted Cabinet jobs rather than walking out – then vowing to unveil up to 100 names calling on Mr Brown to quit;
The pound hammered again as the turmoil alarmed the City;
Glenys Kinnock handed a peerage and unveiled as a desperate replacement for the outgoing Miss Flint.
Senior backbencher Tony Wright, the chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee, said that after the drama of the past week, the party needed to get back to the business of government.
Bitter: Miss Flint's resignation letter
'What I'm hearing from people all around the country is that they would like people at Westminster just to stop it and get on with the business of government,' he said.
'People are saying to us 'stop the infighting, stop the cabal-ing, stop the organising against the leadership.''
Former party leader Neil Kinnock said that he believed that the rebels behind the so-called peasants revolt did not have the nerve or the numbers to mount a successful challenge.
'The so-called rebels are very few in number, not substantial and they lack the most critically important feature in democratic politics - what Churchill called intestinal fortitude - guts,' Lord Kinnock said.
'If they had any they would have made their identities known before now.'
After surviving his own longest day as Prime Minister, Mr Brown travelled to Normandy today for the 65th D-Day anniversary.
Rebel MPs sought to draw parallels with Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to cancel a trip to Paris during the leadership crisis that ended her premiership.
They said Mr Brown had survived – for now – but claimed his political authority and integrity were irreparably damaged.
As well as Miss Flint, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary John Hutton, Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy and Housing Minister Margaret Beckett all quit the Government.
Their departures came after the shock resignation on Thursday of Blairite James
Purnell, who stabbed Mr Brown in the front by branding him an electoral liability.
