BRITAIN:An expected Commons confrontation later today with David Cameron over his refusal of an EU treaty referendum is likely to set the stage for Gordon Brown's prime ministerial debut at the European summit in Lisbon tomorrow.
At Westminster, meanwhile, six or seven aspiring Liberal Democrat MPs will be sounding out colleagues about their chances in a two-month leadership contest to succeed Menzies Campbell, who resigned on Monday night.
The Lib Dem leader yesterday admitted he felt "irritated and frustrated" at having to stand down without contesting a general election, while insisting no one had asked him to go and that the decision was entirely his.
Sir Menzies (66) said he had concluded he would find it difficult to overcome persistent questions about his age and leadership. "It became pretty clear to me, Gordon Brown having called off the election, that it was going to be very hard to get out from under that - that the sort of development of policy, the sort of presentation of policy which is necessary was going to be continually difficult simply because the kind of default story in the minds of so many people is the question of my age," he told the BBC.
"I took the view very firmly that this was not going to be in the interests of the party and that, if I were to step down, it had to be now so that a new leader would have the opportunity of bedding himself or herself in."
Lib Dem chief executive Lord Rennard also maintained there had been "no plot" to force Sir Menzies's departure, despite backstage briefings against him by MPs alarmed by the party's slide in the opinion polls.
However, MP Mike Hancock said the treatment of Sir Menzies by some of his colleagues had been "absolutely despicable", while frontbench colleague Norman Baker added that "a decent man deserved better than that".
While former leadership contender and party president Simon Hughes ruled himself out of the race, Sir Menzies declined to confirm that he would like to see home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg succeed him. Intriguingly, Sir Menzies also declined to comment on "a hypothetical question" when asked how he would respond should his old friend Gordon Brown invite him to "serve" in some capacity.
Mr Brown, meanwhile, remained under sustained attack from a Conservative leadership restored by a seven-point lead in the polls following the prime minister's damaging U-turn over an autumn election and Chancellor Darling's "theft" of Tory plans to increase inheritance tax thresholds.
In a raid on traditional Labour territory, Mr Cameron attacked the government's failure to stamp out poverty and reform the welfare system. Mr Cameron claimed Mr Brown's "clunking" tax credit system created misery among the poorest while wasting billions in fraud, error and overpayment.
Repeating his pledge to end the tax penalty on couples who stay together and stop the "revolving door of people flitting in and out of work", the Tory leader said he did not doubt Mr Brown's sincerity. But he insisted: "He must see that his methods have failed. It is time for a change when after 10 years of a government that promised social justice, there are 600,000 more people in deep poverty than when they began."
As foreign secretary David Miliband declared the government's "red lines" on the EU reform treaty "fully secure", his Tory shadow, William Hague, declared: "Like the Maginot Line, they do not live up to their billing." The refusal of a referendum, he said, would see Mr Brown forfeit "his honour" and the public's trust.