A Kent Labour MP has publicly raised a question mark over Gordon Brown’s future as party leader.

In outspoken comments following the party’s mauling in the local council elections, Derek Wyatt, MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, hinted the party might have to consider "brave decisions" if its poll rating remained so far behind the Conservatives.

While he did not go as far as saying he believed Brown should quit, Mr Wyatt, a junior ministerial aide, made no secret of his anger at the party’s handling of the 10p income tax rate row. He said it had contributed to Labour’s worst showing in elections since the 1960s.

He also said he was "bored" with the Government saying it was listening and it took too long for Gordon Brown to say sorry.

"We have got to a dangerous position. We have inflicted some substantial own goals,

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one of which was to say that you were planning to increase tax on poorer people ten days before an election.

"I have never had so many constituents complain. I am bored with the Government saying it is listening. If it had been, it would not have abolished the 10p income tax band. There is trouble with our communication which needs to be refocused."

He praised Gordon Brown as a decent man but

in a candid and bleak assessment warned the Government contained too many under-performing ministers.

"We have to clear out the crap in the cabinet. If he does not do that, to be honest we are not going to recover. He has until the conference season and if he is still 24 per cent down in the polls, the party will have to take some pretty brave decisions. The party is pretty stressed. It took a long time for Gordon Brown to say sorry for the 10p tax decision. I am a Labour man who believes in helping poorer people. If we do that once more, we will have had it."

Mr Wyatt represents a constituency in which he holds one of the narrowest majorities in the country, just 79 votes.