'Blair babes' turn against Brown

They were dubbed the "Blair Babes" - the 101 Labour women lawmakers elected when Tony Blair came to power in Britain in 1997 - who would transform gender imbalances in the British Parliament.

But with three female ministers quitting Prime Minister Gordon Brown's already limping government as he faces an expected drubbing in local and European elections yesterday, women at the top of British politics are now being accused of staging the "revenge of the sisterhood".

It is an accusation they firmly reject: Jacqui Smith, Britain's first female interior minister, insisted "there is no conspiracy here" as she confirmed her intention to quit.

But political commentators struggled to see this week's resignations of Ms Smith, communities minister Hazel Blears, children's minister Beverly Hughes, along with a decision by former health secretary Patricia Hewitt to step down at the next election, as anything else.

The "Women Against Gordon" had been gathering, it said, for all-female political dinners and hatching "plots" to turn against Mr Brown if he failed to promote more women. In The Times, political commentator Anne Thompson, warned "Hell hath no fury like the women scorned".

Late yesterday British Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said he was resigning from the Cabinet and called on Mr Brown to stand aside as leader, Sky News said.

News of the resignation, which broke as polls closed in local and European elections, further erodes Mr Brown's authority and increases the possibility of a challenge to Mr Brown's leadership of the ruling Labour Party.