The pressure on UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to resign is mounting. After the resignations of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith because of her links to the parliamentary expenses scandal on Tuesday and Communities Secretary Hazel Blears on Wednesday, Works and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has now also announced his resignation.
Purnell doesn't hold back in his resignation letter:
I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely. That would be disastrous for our country. I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning. As such I am resigning from government.
With Labour expected to only get around 20% of the vote in the local and European parliament elections that were held today, it seems that Brown position is becoming untenable. Results in the European elections will only be made public on Monday, as most countries vote on Sunday, but the local results will be published tonight or tomorrow morning, and there will be feverish activity based on those results.
The opposition is calling for early elections, but the most likely scenario at the moment looks like Brown will resign somewhere next week and a new Labour PM will try to resurrect the party before the next elections, with former mailman and current Health Secretary Allan Johnson the favorite.