A SENIOR Mersey MP broke ranks last night to urge fellow Labour MPs to consider ditching Gordon Brown in the wake of the Glasgow by-election disaster.

George Howarth, the Knowsley North and Sefton East MP, said the shock result – the loss of Labour’s 25th safest seat on a 22.5% swing – showed the party was in a “gravely difficult position”.

The former home office minister rejected the view that Labour’s unpopularity was the result of rising food, fuel and mortgage prices, rather than the prime minister himself.

Instead, Mr Howarth said: “Over the next few weeks, people need to think long and hard about how we go forward to get out of this. Obviously, that includes the question of the leadership of the party.”

The outspoken comments reflect the private views of many Labour MPs left reeling by the crashing defeat to the SNP, which overturned a thumping 13,507 majority in Mr Brown’s Scottish backyard.

And they were quickly echoed by Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB trade union, who called for Mr Brown to face a leadership challenge following the “unmitigated disaster”.

Peter Kilfoyle, the Liverpool Walton MP, said: “Gordon Brown needs to change the direction he set years ago – which ignores our core vote – and I don’t know whether he is capable of doing that.”

Wirral South MP Ben Chapman declined to discuss the leadership, saying simply: “We need to understand the message that people are sending to us and respond to that.”

Bookmakers William Hill slashed the odds of Mr Brown leading Labour into the next election to 4/6 against, with Justice Secretary Jack Straw the favourite to replace him.

The Prime Minister, attending Labour’s national policy forum conference in Coventry, immediately tried to stamp on talk of a leadership crisis by insisting he was “getting on with the job”.