He said: “A prime minister needs a different set of skills from a chancellor of the exchequer.

“A prime minister must be able to communicate, persuade and enthuse. If not, the message is lost.”

He added: “I hope Gordon reflects on things during August and accepts that it is in the party’s best interests, and perhaps his own, for him to stand down.”

Earlier ex-minister and Manchester MP Graham Stringer called for Mr Brown to stand down and face a leadership contest.

Former minister George Howarth again denied yesterday that he was organising a coup to install Jack Straw as prime minister.

But he came close to calling for Mr Brown to quit.

Mr Howarth said: “I am emphatically not compiling a list of MPs willing to send a letter to Gordon. Others may be doing so, but that is up to them. What I have said to some MPs and party members is that we are in a perilous situation.

“And as part of that process the PM’s role has to be up for discussion.”

Tony Lloyd, the powerful chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, admitted that the Government had to “sharpen up” yesterday.

But he warned that any leadership election would be a “diversion” from dealing with economic problems.

Adding to the sense of panic and defeatism inside Labour, former loyalist Michael Connarty warned that the “incompetent” abolition of the 10p rate of income tax had turned million of voters against Labour for good.

“We’ll never recover from that,” he said.

Meanwhile, fresh evidence of Labour’s pitiable standing in the polls emerged last night.

A Populus poll put Mr Brown on 27 per cent with David Cameron on 47 per cent. And just over half of voters believe that replacing Mr Brown would improve the party’s fortunes.

If such results were repeated at a general election they would give the Tories a 150-seat Commons majority.