With his Labour Party facing a rout in Thursday's local and European elections, Prime Minister Gordon Brown looks sure to reshuffle his cabinet and finance minister Alistair Darling could be the most high-profile victim. Some aides say they have been urging Brown to put schools minister and close ally Ed Balls into the Treasury for a while, arguing it would bring more discipline to the ministry and give Labour a better chance of winning a national election due by next year. A source close to Brown told Reuters that plans have reached a stage where which officials would move departments have been discussed though no decisions have been taken and probably won't be until after the local and European elections on June 4. Labour is well behind in the polls and set to lose power to the opposition Conservatives next year after ruling since 1997. Such a move also risks making economic policy more left-leaning if Balls is keen to burnish his credentials as a future Labour leader with the party's traditional support base but his room for manoeuvre may be limited given the dire state of the public finances. Other advisers, however, say they are concerned that sacking a finance minister sends the wrong signal to markets at a critical time and would look like Darling was being set up as a fall guy after having to deal with the banking crisis and the recession. The British economy is set to shrink at its fastest pace since World War Two this year and public borrowing has hit a record high as the government has had to shell out billions of pounds to bail out the banking sector.
