Brown 'to call election tomorrow'

Gordon Brown will tomorrow call the UK general election for May 6 – and warn voters that a Conservative government would lead the country back into recession.

The British prime minister will seek an audience with the Queen mid-morning, before returning to Downing Street to announce that the election is under way.

Parliament will be dissolved next Monday, but Mr Brown will immediately hit the road on a campaign that is going to be based around direct contact with voters.

Features picked up from Barack Obama’s successful run for the White House will include meeting workers in their canteens and having personal chats with people in their homes.

Tomorrow’s announcement – confirmed tonight by Labour sources – follows months of anticipation of an election which will be the hardest-fought in many years.

While a string of recent polls show the Tories’ lead now growing, there are still some suggesting a narrow margin that could result in a hung parliament.

One Labour source said tonight the party saw itself as “the underdogs” but that there was a “resilience and determination within the campaign team to win”.

In an indication of the dividing line Mr Brown intends to draw with the Tories over the next month, he said tonight: “The people of this country have fought too hard to get Britain on the road to recovery to allow anybody to take us back on the road to recession.”

Labour’s focus as it seeks an historic fourth successive term of office will be on securing the economic recovery, protecting frontline services while halving the deficit and renewing the country’s politics.

But Mr Brown’s principal message will be that he is committed to improving voters’ living standards.

In an eve-of-announcement interview with the Daily Mirror, the Prime Minister said this election was “not about small issues – it is the big choice”.

Arguing Labour has “come so far in taking Britain out of recession”, he urged the public to stick with him to see the job through.

He said he and Chancellor Alistair Darling had proven more successful in managing the recession than the Tories in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Everybody predicted rapidly rising unemployment, far higher than it is now, but unemployment is lower than America and the rest of Europe,” he said.

“Everybody predicted that there would be a mortgage repossession rise equivalent to the 1990s; there has not been that rise.

“Everybody predicted there would be a lot more business failures; we have managed to keep businesses going.

“Do we throw this away now?”

As well as the Prime Minister’s “GB On The Road” campaign, Labour will be seeking to make use of social networking sites and email.

After negative campaigning by the Tories about Mr Brown, Labour will be trying to persuade voters of what they call the Prime Minister’s “granite-like resilience, authenticity and vision for the future”.

Tory leader David Cameron will be portrayed as “plastic PR and slogans”.

The whole Cabinet, which will hold its usual Tuesday morning meeting before Mr Brown heads to Buckingham Palace, will also start campaigning immediately.

Some will be working the phone bank at Labour’s Victoria Street headquarters, others will be visiting crucial constituencies.