Senior Labour backbench MPs criticise the prime minister's handling of the row over MPs expenses in the wake of the party's by-election defeat in Norwich North.
The Conservatives overturned a Labour majority of almost 5,500 to win the by-election, which was sparked by the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson.
Mr Gibson quit as MP for Norwich North after being told by a Labour disciplinary panel he would not be allowed to stand at the next election over revelations about his expenses claims.
Writing in the Independent today, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke criticised Gordon Brown's "incompetent and unjust" handling of the expenses scandal.
Mr Clarke, MP for the neighbouring seat of Norwich South, accused both Mr Brown and Tory leader David Cameron of abandoning "fairness" and "denigrating" their own MPs.
"It was this arbitrary approach which led directly to the by-election as the prime minister vilified Ian Gibson, but not on any fair basis," he wrote. "This incompetent and unjust style has deeply damaged democratic politics. Moreover the appalling result in Norwich illustrates the important political side-effect that Labour, as the governing party, has been injured worst of all.
"The main reason for the Norwich result was that voters there were quite clear that it was for them, not the Labour leadership, to decide whether or not Ian Gibson remained their MP."
'Get our act together'
Barry Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield and chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, said Labour needed to "get our act together".
"The fact of the matter is we've got to think about how a party in government renews itself, how it does that," he said. "It's partly a question of leadership, it's partly a question of ideas."
He went on to say that Mr Brown was not connecting with voters, adding: "In any other human organisation I know, if the chief executive doesn't get it and doesn't deliver then he has to consider his position.
"Now I'm saying he's got the summer to recognise this isn't about members' expenses, it's about something much more fundamental.
"People don't want to know about what we've done, they want to know what we're going to do and whether we've got the leadership and the forward-vision thinking to do it.
"That's what we need and he's got this summer to show he's got the capability that he can do it."
'Disappointing'
Conservative candidate Chloe Smith won the seat by 7,348 votes. She secured more than twice as many votes as Labour rival Chris Ostrowski, who held on to second place ahead of the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.
Yesterday, Mr Brown said: "This is clearly a disappointing result, but...the voters were clearly torn between their anger and dismay at what has been happening over MPs' expenses, something that we are trying to clean up, and at the same time the support for the former MP, the Labour MP Ian Gibson who was very popular."
Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, accepted that morale was low among MPs, but said: "There will be no leadership challenge to Gordon Brown."
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