Brown to defend decision against autumn poll

Gordon Brown will hit back at accusations he treated the public “like fools” over his autumn election decision today when he faces the press and fellow MPs.

The Prime Minister’s decision to kill off speculation of an early poll sparked fierce claims he had reverted to spin tactics and put party before the country.

But he will get the chance to mount his defence at the monthly Downing Street press conference, where the issue appears certain to dominate exchanges.

Iraq policy is also likely to feature in the exchanges – which will take place shortly before Mr Brown goes to the Commons to make a long-awaited statement.

There too he will face tough questions after fuelling controversy by using a visit to Iraq to announce the withdrawal of 1,000 UK troops before telling MPs of the plans.

And in the evening, he is expected to address the Parliamentary Labour Party - a traditional engagement for the party leader when the Commons returns from its summer break.

The PM said he ruled out a snap poll on Saturday so people could see his “vision” put into action – and said it was “not likely” he would go to the country before 2009.

But Tory leader David Cameron said the PM was “not being straight” with the public and had been pushed into his decision by polls showing he could lose his Commons majority.

And Mr Brown’s own deputy Harriet Harman conceded that the episode could have damaged the Prime Minister, telling the BBC: “We’ll see”.

His announcement that there would be no snap election ended weeks of fevered speculation at Westminster, but also opened an angry political row.

The decision coincided with a series of polls showing the Conservatives forging into a lead on the back of their party conference and popular plans to cut inheritance tax.

The most striking – by ICM for the News of the World – put Mr Cameron’s party six points ahead in 83 marginal seats, on course to depose 49 Labour MPs and force a hung parliament.

The Prime Minister insisted he had not feared defeat and told the BBC he felt Labour would win “today, next week or weeks after”.

“The question I asked myself in the end was a more fundamental one: why am I in public life; what am I here to do. And I think I have a duty to set out my vision for the future.”

Asked why he had allowed the speculation to continue, he said he also had a “duty” to consider all requests for an early election – whether from his own advisers and MPs or the Opposition.

“There were people who were saying that you should go, there were people saying that you shouldn’t go. But you know, I made the decision for a different reason.

“The decision I’ve made is because I want to get on with the job of change in this country. And I believe I’ve got to show people that we’re implementing the changes in practice.

Pressed on whether he was ruling out a vote “for a long time to come”, he said: “I think it’s very unlikely that this will happen in the next period.

Mr Cameron told the BBC: “Everybody knows he is not having an election because he thinks there is a chance of losing it and I think that is just treating people like fools and I think it will rebound on him very badly.”

And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said the “charade” had been conducted entirely in the interests of the Labour Party and accused the PM of reverting to “the worst of Blairism”.

“It is deeply, deeply damaging (to him) and more than that it is deeply, deeply damaging to politics.”

His party will today launch a bid for legislation to strip Prime Ministers of the right to pick election dates by imposing four-year fixed-term parliaments.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – one of those MPs who the polls predicted would be unseated – insisted the decision had been taken “in the best interests of the country”.

“My experience of the last three months is that when he has to make tough decisions he has invariably made them in a way that has been right for the country,” she told Sky News.

And Chancellor Alistair Darling said Mr Brown was right that voters wanted the Government to “get on with the job of governing” and rejected suggestions the PM had been damaged by the affair.

But Ms Harman indicated that that remained to be seen.

“I don’t think it should damage him at all,” she told BBC Radio 4’s The World this Weekend.

Asked if it may have done nonetheless, she replies: “Well, you know, we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, Ladbrokes said the odds on the Tories winning the most seats at the next General election had been cut from 13/8 to 6/4.