A pair of former Labour ministers denied they were seeking to "cause trouble" for Gordon Brown today, as they launched a website calling for a wide-ranging discussion on the party's future direction.

Alan Milburn, the former Health Secretary, and the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, launched The 2020 Vision site claiming that Labour needs a serious analysis of future policy before Tony Blair stands down, otherwise the party would be "sleepwalking" towards electoral disaster.

Both men have previously urged the Chancellor, who is runaway leadership favourite when Mr Blair leaves office later this year, to say more about what he would do as Prime Minister.

The pair's initiative will lead to speculation of a possible challenge to Mr Brown from the Blairite camp, amid signs that the Chancellor may not receive an easy ride into No 10.

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Background

• The Clarke and Milburn email in full

• Ex-Labour ministers in new 'challenge' to Brown

• Brown needs a proper fight, not a grudging handover

Related Internet Links

• The 2020 Vision

• The Labour Party website

• Comment Central: What are Clarke and Milburn really up to?

Related Links

• Comment: no serious threat to Brown ... yet

• Brown needs a proper fight, not a grudging handover

• The Clarke and Milburn email in full

Previously, Mr Clarke has said he is "very unlikely" to stand for the leadership while Mr Milburn has not made his intentions clear. Some commentators have suggested, however, that the pair are trying to encourage a viable centre-ground candidate such as David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, to challenge Mr Brown.

Speaking at the website's official launch this morning at Westminster's City Inn Hotel, the men denied that they were seeking to intervene in any leadership election.

"This is a debate about the politics and policies of the future, rather than an intervention in the leadership election," Mr Clarke said, standing in front of a flatscreen television parading an image of the new site.

"This is not about causing trouble for anybody, it's not about building up a putative candidate for somebody, it's not an intervention in the leadership process."

Mr Milburn also dismissed the speculation, adding: "That's not what this is about. If anybody wants a leadership campaign, that is a matter for them, but it is not a matter for us."

Mr Clarke later admitted, however, that Mr Brown had expressed concerns about how the launch would be perceived after meeting the men at the start of this week.

"He had a concern ... it would inevitably be seen through the prism of the leadership election, but that is a problem and Alan and I have worked very hard to ensure that that is not the case," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme.

The hotel where the launch took place is situated directly beneath Millbank Tower, where the Labour Party headquarters used to be based. Labour MPs were also invited to the event, and a total of 16 attended along with a number of researchers. The meeting room where the launch was held was, however, mainly filled by members of the media.

In an e-mail to Labour MPs informing them of the new website this morning, the pair say their desire for "open parliamentary debate" is shared by many of their colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

They described the coming few months, which are expected to see Mr Blair finally step down as Labour leader after 13 years, as "critical" for the party’s future.

"After 10 years in office, we will need to demonstrate that we have the vision and the policies to successfully meet the future challenges faced by our country and the wider world," it read.

"There will, of course, be many different points of view about the future direction we should take as a party, but we believe the critical thing is to develop an open process for ideas and views to be aired."

The site - which is fronted by a picture of a young woman looking into a set of binoculars accompanied by the slogan "Towards a progressive century" - was already posting a wide range of reader comments by lunchtime today, which were left by both MPs and the public.

One, from an unidentified person signing as Ed Clarke, said: "On the site today I see comments are moderated. Presumably this is so that nobody who doesn’t toe the New Labour line is excluded from the debate."

Another, from the Blairite MP Gisela Stuart, welcomed the debate, saying she wanted debate but did not want "divisions and factions in the party".

"Robust debate is necessary to ensure that our ideas are sound and have wide support within the Labour Party," she wrote.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Blair was goaded in the Commons about the launch, which had finished minutes beforehand.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, asked the Prime Minister: "Did you find time in your busy day to attend the meeting this morning organised by two former Cabinet colleagues to work out how to relaunch your Government?"

Mr Blair said he had not, but added: "I am delighted that a full policy debate is happening within the Labour Party."

Mr Cameron retorted: “Isn’t this the whole problem: you seem to think the Chancellor is Einstein but half the backbenchers think he is Mrs Rochester?

“Why don’t you let him out of the attic and we can get on with the main event?”

He was echoing a taunt by Frank Field, a former Labour minister, who last week compared Mr Brown to Mrs Rochester, the mad first wife imprisoned in an attic in the novel, Jane Eyre.

Mr Blair reiterated: “As I think you will find out, it is policy that will determine the future of this country. And every time it comes to policy, the truth is that you don’t know where you stand."

What they have said:

"The danger for us today is that Cameron learns the lesson from what made New Labour electable, and that we forget it" Alan Milburn, in a lecture on how progressives win elections, to the Australian Labour Party. February 13, 2007.

"While more people are better off, poverty has become more entrenched. We all pay the price. The taxpayers who pay the price of social failure, the decent hard-working families who live in fear of crime, the loss we all feel from a declining sense of shared community." Alan Milburn, in a speech on the future of Britain and renewing New Labour. September 14, 2006.

"We should learn from the mistakes of the past and devote far more energy, resources and creativity to building stable and secure societies in the aftermath of conflict." Charles Clarke, in a speech on the world after George W. Bush, to the Fabian Society. November 29, 2006.

"I never rule anything out for the future." Charles Clarke, when asked to rule out whether he will in future stand to be Labour leader, in an interview with the Oxford University newspaper Cherwell 24, on January 12, 2007.

"We should shift decisively to attach tax revenues to those things that the public wants to spend money on. The Treasury has conventionally rejected this proposal, including under this Government, on the fundamental grounds that it does not want any restrictions upon its freedom to act. I think that they do not give sufficient weight to the downside of that attitude, which is that the citizen does not feel any particular connection to or ownership of the way that their taxes are spent." Charles Clarke, on taxation during a lecture on economic policy and taxation after Blair at the London School of Economics. February 7, 2007.

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