Meghnad Desai with wife Kishwar and (below) Swraj Paul with wife Aruna

London, April 18: Two peers of Indian origin — Lord (Meghnad) Desai and Lord (Swraj) Paul — have stirred up British politics by appearing to take sharply differing views of the declining popularity of Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister.

This morning, as Desai flew off to Guernsey for a meeting, he told The Telegraph that he was not seeking to topple Brown but was merely urging the Prime Minister to improve his presentational skills.

However, that was not how it came out yesterday when an interview given by Desai to the Evening Standard in London about Brown was collectively picked up by the British media and used as ammunition against the Prime Minister.

As Desai himself admitted today, his quote was memorable. He had told the Evening Standard: “Gordon Brown was put on Earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was.”

However, Brown’s loyal Indian friend, Paul, who was himself preparing to leave for Italy, once offered to The Telegraph that “Gordon Brown would prove to be the best Prime Minister Britain has ever had”.

“So far I have no reason to change that view,” he said, though Brown’s government has stripped non-domicile businessmen such as himself of some of the tax advantages they had hitherto enjoyed.

Paul, who had gone on supporting Indira Gandhi even after she had lost the 1977 general election and was not expected by pundits in India to make a comeback, said of the current sniping at Brown: “This is normal politics — you go up and down.”

Paul, who has just returned from Calcutta where he had led a British seven-member Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation at the invitation of the Bengal government, stressed Brown’s qualities as he saw them: “He is a conviction politician. He is getting on with the business of government. Along the way, he has made a few people unhappy.”

The attacks on Brown could not have come at a more embarrassing time, since the Prime Minister was yesterday in Washington meeting the three main presidential candidates as well as George W. Bush on a trip that has been overshadowed by that of the Pope. Some papers today carried photographs of Brown, eyes closed, apparently taking a catnap at the UN.

Desai insisted that he was not seeking to have Brown replaced by his 43-year-old foreign secretary David Miliband, though he acknowledged the latter would be the best person to succeed the Prime Minister if that were necessary. “I don’t have an agenda,” he emphasised. “I have been a Labour Party member for 37 years.”

While that may be true, Desai’s comments served to pile pressure on the Prime Minister who is having to deal with the consequences of the economic downturn in the US.

If Labour mayor Ken Livingstone loses the mayoral election in London next month to the Tory challenger Boris Johnson, there will be “panic” in the party, Desai predicted.

Today, even the Labour-supporting Mirror newspaper reminded readers that Desai had said: “Blair was like champagne and caviar, Brown is more like porridge or Haggis. He is very solid, very nourishing but not exciting.”

The Mirror commented: “It came as part of a stinging criticism of the premier’s electoral chances and amidst whispers that many senior figures in the party are already sizing up David Miliband as the best candidate to step into the fray and take over as leader.”

The Daily Telegraph implied that Desai had to be taken seriously as he was “an eminent economist who was a member of Labour’s front bench team in the Lords in the 1990s”.

Desai clearly had a busy day yesterday for he also told BBC News 24: “A lot of this is about perception. He doesn’t seem to be able to tell people he’s on their side and he can solve their problems. I really think somebody has to change his style and make him more presentable.

“I’m not stabbing him in the back, if I am stabbing him at all, it’s in the front. I have said something openly, frankly. Tony Blair had a style of communication and that’s why, when you see Gordon Brown, you say, ‘Oh my God, how good Tony Blair was.’ ”