Now Hoon joins spending revolt

Gordon Brown today faces a growing Cabinet revolt over his warning to senior ministers to slash their bids for extra cash in the run-up to this summer's three-year public spending round.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is the latest figure to come out fighting as he let it be known the MoD is so short of money that it is raiding next year's budget to meet this year's requirements.

He wants £1billion more a year to meet the military's extra commitments following the 11 September terror attacks. Treasury negotiations are said to be "not going well" at a sensitive time for the MoD with 1,700 Marines about to go into combat in Afghanistan.

Mr Hoon joined Home Secretary David Blunkett in effectively going public with his demand for cash. Mr Blunkett enraged Mr Brown yesterday by using a Downing Street summit on street crime to claim that if he did not get more police funding, the muggers would win. Today the Home Secretary continued to claim his planned reforms needed "sensible resourcing", and further rattled Mr Brown's cage by claiming spending decisions were a matter for the full Cabinet, not just the Chancellor.

He added on Radio 4's Today programme: "Just as I have a responsibility for ensuring that I back Gordon Brown in the prudent measures that have led us to sustained economic success, so collectively we all carry responsibility for deciding what it is we can afford to spend and what our priorities are." He said he had come to realise what a "tremendous battle" his predecessor Jack Straw had waged to try to get cash out of the Treasury. He added: "I am a past master at survival in terms of those early days when we put the reform in place."

Asked whether Mr Brown would give him the hundreds of millions extra he wanted or had told him to "clear off", Mr Blunkett replied: "I don't think we speak to each other like that. We are colleagues. We share the challenge of continuing the success of our economy in order to invest in public services."