Graphic: Phil Collins interprets Blears's resignation letter and Brown's reply | Comment Central: What does it all really mean?

Hazel Blears was accused of stirring up a “Pugin Room plot” with female Cabinet colleagues two days before her resignation plunged Gordon Brown into a crisis.

Allies of the Prime Minister seized upon a Monday meeting of women MPs, including Ms Blears, Jacqui Smith and Caroline Flint, in the hallowed Commons bar-lounge overlooking the Thames as evidence of a female conspiracy to oust him. Male Labour MPs allied to Mr Brown were openly speculating about the motives behind the Pugin Room meeting — the latest sign of the fear and loathing that is gripping the party.

Mr Brown’s henchmen spent the day putting Ms Blears at the centre of an attempt to undermine him.

Friends of the Prime Minister made the explosive suggestion that Ms Blears was responsible for leaking news of Ms Smith’s impending resignation to destabilise the Prime Minister. They said that her behaviour had been a “disgrace”, with one Brown ally suggesting that the women were “plotting together” in one of the tea rooms. There were also assertions from figures close to No 10 that Ms Blears had further questions to answer about her own expenses.

Last night allies of Ms Blears hit back, rejecting the suggestion she had tried to co-ordinate a coup against the Prime Minister and denying that she was involved in leaking the news of Ms Smith’s departure.

The way in which a regular meeting of women is being viewed with suspicion by male colleagues is in itself a reflection of the tensions in the testosterone-dominated culture inside the party.

One member of the group said there was nothing sinister about it. “Any Monday or Tuesday evening you would find some or all of us in one of the tea rooms in the Commons. We meet because we are friends and [of] our social circle rather than because we share the same views. One male MP once told me he was really jealous of us because of our friends. He said, ‘If you don’t drink you have no way to make a social circle’. We are all friends, even though we have very different political careers.”

She added: “It is a very male environment here. There’s Sue Nye, but that’s about it. The e-mail thing [Damian McBride’s e-mail smear campaign] really showed how they are. They are bullies. They pick on people they can bully. If you stand up to them, they have no idea how to stand up to you. They picked on her [Hazel]. I don’t think they thought through the consequences. Then they came back for her.”

The female Blairite circle is tight-knit. The most prominent members are Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Caroline Flint and Siobhain McDonagh. Joan Ryan, MP for Enfield North, is also one of the group. When diary secretaries pencil in evening engagements for group members, they write: “Girls’ Night Out”. Typically they meet in any of the tea rooms or small restaurants in the Palace of Westminster, often with wine and always over food. Such a social arrangement differs markedly from the blokeish beer-and-curry evenings at the Red Lion pub in Whitehall, Soho karaoke bars, and the curry houses of Kennington.

One explained: “What we all have in common is that we are all Blairites. We all first got together in 1997. We are all hard workers and campaigners. We all have a reputation for doing quite a lot for our constituents. I think that that is quite a female thing. We all try to stick up for one another. But there is no coup. They just don’t know how to respond to this. There is genuine discontent among constituents. The constituents just don’t want Gordon Brown any more.”

Ms Blears announced her departure to the media soon after 10am after heated discussions with Mr Brown on Tuesday night and yesterday morning. Her decision to go pre-empted her almost inevitable sacking in the forthcoming reshuffle. But it drew fire because it was timed to inflict maximum damage just a day after the departure of two other members of the Government, Ms Smith and Tom Watson.

“She was finished anyway,” said one leading ally of Gordon Brown. “She jumped before she was pushed.”

A Labour MP even claimed that No 10 had had to intervene to prevent Ms Blears from being called before the party’s “star chamber” to explain her expenses. There were suggestions that she had failed to come clean over her failures to pay capital gains tax.

One member of Ms Blears’s social circle stood up for her friend, saying: “The Prime Minister singled her out and let off other people who had done more. Then they picked on her, saying that she had leaked that Jacqui Smith was going.”

In her letter to Mr Brown, Ms Blears said that she was quitting “to help you and the Labour Party to reconnect with the British people”. Friends suggested that she was unwilling to wait until the weekend because “tensions had risen to a point that was unsustainable”.

Ms Blears was being heavily criticised by moderate members of the Parliamentary Labour Party for undermining Labour’s chances in today’s local and European elections. But The Times understands that she felt her position was untenable as a direct consequence of Downing Street blaming her publicly for leaking.

Allies said that she feared further briefings between now and the reshuffle and poured scorn on suggestions that she was behind a female plot against Mr Brown. “If you were going to plot, the last place you would do it would be in the Pugin Room. You would pick a Midlands curry house,” said one friend, referring to a plot to oust Tony Blair hatched in a curry house by Brown allies.

There were signs last night of divisions within the female group. Friends of Ms Smith made clear that she believed that Ms Blears was responsible for leaking the name. “It’s more than a belief,” said one close ally.

Ms Smith’s plan to resign was agreed at Easter, her allies said.

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