GORDON BROWN is facing fresh cabinet disquiet about his leadership after senior ministers in a meeting at No 10 openly questioned his tactics for taking on the Tories.

The prime minister was challenged at a session of the full cabinet last week after he insisted Labour should fight the general election on a platform of more public spending in contrast to Tory “cuts”. He is determined to repeat the tactic that helped Labour win in 2005, despite the economic recession making significant spending increases impossible.

Cabinet colleagues fear the strategy is “too crude” and are concerned that the government has not been candid enough about the challenges posed by Britain’s £175 billion budget deficit.

Among those who spoke out at Tuesday’s cabinet was Yvette Cooper, the work and pensions secretary, who is normally regarded as Brown’s most loyal female minister. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, warned that Brown’s central assertion that a Tory government would cut spending by 10% was based on flimsy extrapolations.

A cabinet source told The Sunday Times: “We should be putting balls in the back of the net, but we are missing every shot against the Tories.” According to one source who was present, Brown was visibly irritated at the way he had been undermined, and brought the meeting to an early close, avoiding further debate.

The disclosures come as the prime minister’s plans for a “relaunch” are delayed for a second time as No 10 struggles to find eyecatching policies that can stand up to scrutiny.

Cabinet ministers have also voiced private unease about Brown’s handling of the inquiry into the Iraq war, questioning his failure to foresee the backlash against plans to hold it in private. Some believe the reason for holding it privately is a move by Lord Mandelson to protect Tony Blair.

Tensions about the election strategy have simmered since Andrew Lansley, the Tory health spokesman, admitted his party would need to make “very powerful spending constraints” to protect the NHS, schools and foreign aid. He suggested budgets could be cut by as much as 10%, and Brown seized on the admission.

Unease flared in last week’s cabinet when Brown said of the Tories: “First they will cut by 5%, then by 10%. That is an ideological decision, not a pragmatic one.” But Darling pointed out that Brown’s Tory cuts figures did not represent the party’s policy but were merely “extrapolations” based on figures produced by a think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Cooper, previously the Treasury minister responsible for public spending, echoed his concerns and warned that ministers must beware of making spending pledges they could not deliver.

One cabinet minister at the meeting said: “There is a big difference between us and the Tories on spending, so the cuts versus investment argument is still valid. But we must not allow it to sound that crude. We need to finesse the argument into something more sophisticated.”

Brown is this weekend facing new pressure to change the rules governing the Iraq war inquiry. He has bowed to demands to allow some of the hearings to be public, but there is deep frustration among Labour MPs at what is seen as another PR disaster. Even loyal MPs are questioning why the prime minister failed to foresee the controversy that a private inquiry would cause.

In the weeks before parliament’s summer recess, Downing Street hopes to shift the agenda back onto constitutional reform, publishing legislation to clean up the House of Lords in the wake of The Sunday Times “cash for amendments” exposé.

Brown last week appointed a new communications chief, Simon Lewis, to repair his reputation following the leadership crisis in which some ministers resigned.

Concerns that his image is damaged beyond repair were fuelled by an interview in which he said he could “walk away from all of this tomorrow”, though he was referring to the trappings of power rather than the job itself.

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