Brown rallies election support

GORDON Brown warned Labour yesterday that the party faced “the fight of our lives” to win the British general election.

As its autumn conference got under way in Brighton, he sought to rally ministers, MPs and activists behind a major counter-assault against the Tories ahead of an election which must be held within nine months.

Chancellor Alistair Darling berated the party for failing to put up a fight against the Tories, who maintain a commanding lead in the polls.

“We don’t look as if we have got fire in our bellies,” Darling told The Observer. “We have got to come out fighting.”

Writing in a pre-manifesto policy document, the prime minister insisted that the choice facing the country was now “starker than ever”.

“We know this will be the fight of our lives,” Brown wrote in the foreword to The Choice for Britain.

“But we will fight hard because this election is about everything we care about – fairness and responsibility.”

Brown, who arrived in Brighton yesterday, indicated that success for Labour meant targeting the political centre-ground, signalling he would not allow his party to veer to the Left.

He revealed plans for a new Financial Stability Act which would enshrine in law specific reductions in Britain’s national debt.

On the economy, he said Labour would face up to “hard facts” but also be the party of “investment and reform”.