PRIME Minister Gordon Brown cancelled a visit to the South today blaming the bad weather.

Mr Brown had been due to visit Southampton and Portsmouth on a whistlestop tour of the region.

But Number 10 - which had already cancelled a planned visit to Sussex on yesterday - decided to call off today's trip too.

Mr Brown may have been relieved to have been given the opportunity to stay in Westminster to fight any further moves to destabilise his leadership, after former cabinet members Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt called for a secret ballot of Labour MPs.