April 28, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 21, 1429

LONDON: A growing number of British Labour MPs believe Gordon Brown is an electoral liability, with London MPs pleading for him not to campaign alongside Ken Livingstone for fear of wrecking his chances in this week’s crucial election.

Ministers are openly discussing whether the prime minister can be persuaded to stand aside if Labour does badly in the key London and local elections.

Fresh concern over Brown’s leadership come as the government prepares for the political fallout from an oil refinery strike, which has raised fears of petrol rationing and long queues at garages across the country.

A fresh poll on Saturday night added to Labour anxiety. An ICM survey for the News of the World showed that 131 Labour MPs could be voted out of the Commons in favour of their Tory (Conservative) challengers.

One government source said some colleagues now believed Labour would be out of power for the next two parliaments and were questioning which cabinet ministers would still be young enough to lead the party by the time it recovered: ‘A lot of people are saying “we have lost the next election and the one after that, but when we come back I’ll only be 43” or whatever. There is [as a potential leader] James Purnell, there is Andy Burnham, there are the Miliband brothers and Yvette Cooper.’

Brown’s prospects were not helped on Saturday after panic buying of petrol, triggered by an oil refinery strike at Grangemouth, Lothian. At 6am on Sunday, the Forties pipeline — which supplies more than one third of the UK’s oil and gas — was scheduled to shut down for the first time in its history.

On Saturday, queues formed on forecourts in Scotland and northern England. Some petrol stations rationed supplies while others were forced to close after running dry. In London, garages were busier than usual with some reporting panic-buying and queues.

Amid fears that the situation could soon spread to other parts of the UK and cause a petrol shortage, the government was forced to make an appeal for calm. ‘There is plenty of petrol and diesel in Scotland to meet demand,’ said the Business Secretary, John Hutton. ‘But of course there is going to be a challenge if people change the way that they consume fuel.’

There were fears that the problems could spread south of the border. Hutton has warned garages against profiteering after MPs reported some retailers were taking advantage of the crisis by hiking prices — the last straw for voters already irritated by rising food and domestic bills.

A spokesman for Hutton said retailers caught colluding to inflate prices risked intervention from competition watchdogs, adding: ‘There would be no justification for it whatever. It would be clear profiteering and taking advantage of customers.’

Hutton has not invoked emergency powers to ration fuel, arguing they are unnecessary: oil companies have told the government they can keep supplies running ‘indefinitely’ using imported fuel. However, some Scottish garages have taken their own initiatives, such as restricting drivers to GBP20 of fuel.

Scotland does not have elections this week. But following a teachers’ strike which closed schools last week and threatened walkouts by other public sector unions, a fuel strike even north of the border is the last thing Labour needs.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service