BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown has launched a plea to middle-class voters to back Labour in next year’s general election, warning they face “the biggest choice in a generation”.
In a speech notable for its detail, rather than the quality of the rhetoric, Mr Brown pledged to increase parents’ tax credits and child benefits year-on-year, guaranteed school funding and more free childcare.
He also promised new rules to curb excessive drinking. Young single mothers would be required to live in state-supervised homes and tougher rules would be introduced to force Britain’s “50,000 most chaotic” families to improve their conduct.
Faced with a party despondent about its election hopes, he told delegates gathered in Brighton that Labour members are “fighters and believers who change the world. We have changed the world before and we are going to do it again”.
However, his speech came as the latest opinion poll put Labour third for the first time since 1982 on 24 per cent support, behind the Liberal Democrats on 25 per cent and the Conservatives on 36 per cent.
The speech was laden with references to key political events of the last year, including the global economic crisis, MPs’ expenses scandal and equipment shortages affecting troops in Afghanistan.
In line with speeches from chancellor of the exchequer Alastair Darling and others, he contrasted his economic decisions with proposals advanced by Conservative Party leader David Cameron.
“Only one party thought it was best to do nothing,” he said, adding that “the test of a party” is not “the quality of its marketing”, but “the quality of its judgment”.
Linking Tory support for unregulated markets with bankers, Mr Brown said the latter “had lost sight of basic British values – acting responsibly and acting fairly”.
Seeking to respond to voters’ fury about the MPs’ expenses disgrace, which has eroded Labour’s support more than the Tories, he said voters should be able to demand a byelection to eject an MP if more than 25 per cent of people in a constituency sign a petition.
A referendum held to change the UK’s first past the post voting system will be held, he said, to ensure that MPs are elected with more than 50 per cent of the vote.
Local authorities will be given sanction to ban 24-hour drinking, Mr Brown said, while the courts should use powers to force drunks to stay off alcohol so that “the lives of the lawful majority” are not disrupted by “the lawless minority”.
Appealing to the key middle-class constituency, the prime minister announced that the elderly will qualify for free homecare, regardless of their savings.
“The people who face the greatest burden are too often those on middle incomes who have savings which will last a year or two, but then they will see their savings slip away.”