Brown's move in spotlight as criticism over MPs meeting intensifies

Dubai: With Labour suffering embarrassing defeats in the European elections, the British press are hot on the tail of Gordon Brown, scrutinising his every move.

Monday night's MPs's meeting proved jam-packed, with both calls for his resignation and accusations that the meeting was 'fixed', with loyal MPs being invited to speak first against usual process.

The Daily Telegraph leads with "Brown staves off rebels with emotional speech to Labour MPs".

One criticises the meeting for being skewed with the action of asking a loyalist to speak first.

The Telegraph also highlights the Labour defeat in the European elections. Despite this, coverage highlights the atmosphere of the meeting and who was - and more importantly wasn't - called to speak.

The Guardian leads with "Gordon Brown's great escape: PM sees off rebels despite poll disaster", focusing on Brown's humble tone.

It continues with the rebel attempt to call for a secret ballot on his leadership - which was seen off by party loyalists.

Interestingly, The Independent went with their own commissioned poll - that Alan Johnson would deny David Cameron an overall majority at the next general election if Labour ditched Gordon Brown and instead installed him as Prime Minister.

The poll commissioned by ComRes showed, significantly, that Labour would do better under Straw, Miliband, Cruddas and Balls than under Brown.

Later updates quote Foreign Secretary David Miliband, insisting that the leadership question was "settled", observing that the threat to Gordon Brown's leadership was apparently receding.

The Independent's coverage of the issue: "Despite catastrophic electoral results for Labour and a string of ministerial resignations, only a handful of backbench critics called for Brown to quit last night," shows smattering of support for the PM.

The Times also takes a slightly more positive stance with "Humility wins the day for brown as MPs back down," and "Gordon Brown threw himself on the mercy of his party and promised to change as he battled the crises engulfing his leadership".

Despite a number of MPs telling the PM to go, The Times reports "overwhelming backing to fight on".

In the tabloid press, The Sun's tongue-in-cheek headline showed Brown under the caption "I will survive. At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side."