Cameron keeps pressure on Brown with election launch

Gordon Brown tried once again to steer Labour back on course today as MPs returned to Westminster despairing about another Bank Holiday weekend dominated by ministers shooting themselves in the foot.

The Prime Minister delivered a speech on education and was insisting that it was "business as usual" in the Cabinet, two of whose women members had grabbed the May Day headlines. Hazel Blears bemoaned the Government's "lamentable" communications, and Harriet Harman ruled herself out of a leadership race.

Mr Brown's spokesman declared the Cabinet meeting to have been "constructive" and there was no immediate information about what ministers had said to each other on the sidelines.

But David Cameron, capitalising on the disarray, rushed to launch his party's campaign for the local elections on June 4 and acknowledged Labour in-fighting was “certainly helping” his bid to win the next general election.

“They will be trying to get through the next few days, the next weeks, trying not to fall apart and that is not good for the country.”

He said it was a “tragedy” voters would have to wait before getting rid of Labour.

“What is the point of another wasted year?

“People feel frustrated, people have to put up with a divided, weak, disorientated Government.”

Asked if the Labour leadership row was handing the Tories the next election, he replied: “They are certainly helping.”

But he stressed: “I have not spent the last three and a half years waiting for Labour to screw up.”

Asked if he thought Mr Brown would still be Prime Minister when the next general election is called, he replied: “I always say it is hard enough to run one party without trying to run the others. link...