Labour guru disappointed and angry with Brown leadership

London: One of New Labour's most revered figures yesterday said he was "disappointed" and "angry" with Gordon Brown's leadership.

The attack came from Anthony Giddens, the leading social scientist whose books on The Third Way hugely influenced Brown and Tony Blair in the Nineties.

It came as the Prime Minister's first anniversary in office this Friday provoked a bout of gloomy soul-searching about the party's disastrous drop in the polls and future direction.

"I do have to confess to feeling not only disappointed at, but angry about, the string of poor decisions that have put Labour in such a weak position today," he wrote in Progress, the Labour moderniser's magazine.

Lord Giddens scorned the defence put forward by ministers, that the Government's unpopularity is due to international factors such as global oil price rises rather than its own domestic errors.

"I don't buy the argument that the Government is not responsible for its current situation, that it's mostly the fault of the big, bad global economy," he said.

More evidence emerged on Tuesday of donors deserting Labour because of disenchantment. On Monday the Standard revealed that Brown and the Cabinet were refocusing their fund-raising efforts because of the cash crisis.

Times quoted unnamed former donors saying that they would wait for a new leader.

"I'm not going to give them any more money while Gordon Brown is leader," one said. "It's time for the next generation to take over." Another said of Brown: "He's just not up to the job. Being Chancellor played to his strengths but Prime Minister seems to bring out every weakness."