A Labour MP has said that Gordon Brown is in an "awful hole" over the economy and has been "let down" by cabinet colleagues.
In an interview with ePolitix.com, Robin Cook's former parliamentary aide Ken Purchase warned the prime minister not to copy his predecessor and "aggravate" Labour to get out of current difficulties.
Asked whether the government's handling of the current economic difficulties would determine the outcome of the next election, Purchase said: "Yes, absolutely.I think that Gordon Brown could be a very, very great prime minister but he has got an awful hole to get out of now.
"It has been brought about largely by events over which he has had little control but what I am anxious about is that he doesn't try to do a Blair and aggravate the party.
"Blair seemed to think that by aggravating Labour and taking it off into directions that, even he must have known, the party did not want, that somehow you impress upon the general public just how in charge of the party you are and how like Mrs Thatcher you are. Mrs Thatcher is an ancient memory for most people, certainly for anyone under 40."
And Purchase is clear that the government's current run of poor poll results stems from the "election that never was" in the autumn.
"I thought that was a serious mistake but I'm not sure it particularly resonated in the constituencies. The press got hot and bothered about it and of course, this dithering tag has been applied to Gordon since then and that is very unhelpful.
"The actual event itself, I think was a bit overplayed by the media but it has had this lasting effect of branding Gordon a ditherer.
"It was a mistake and I thought that older and wiser counsel should have prevailed much earlier - it should have been stopped much, much earlier," Purchase said.
Expanding on the relative inexperience of the cabinet, Purchase said: "These people that Gordon has surrounded himself by are amazingly able but in the end, there is no substitute for experience and you can't blame people for being young.
"But there were plenty of other people about who let Gordon down by not fighting their way into that conversation, that discussion, that proposal - maybe some more experienced people should have elbowed their way to the frontline and said to Gordon that it was not a good idea."
