British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried to stamp his authority on his ruling Labour Party on Monday after surviving a plot to depose him less than five months before an election that he is expected to lose. Despite trailing the opposition Conservatives by 10 points in the latest opinion poll, Brown was set to tell lawmakers from his centre-left party later on Monday that an historic fourth consecutive election victory was still within their grasp.
"We can beat them, we must beat them and we will beat them," Brown will say in a speech in which he plans to lay out his election strategy. His office released extracts in advance. Two former cabinet ministers called for a secret ballot of Labour members of parliament last week to decide if Brown should lead the party into an election due by June.
The plot failed to win high-level support. But several cabinet ministers initially gave only lukewarm backing to Brown, hinting at unhappiness with his leadership. One such minister, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, gave a ringing endorsement of Brown on Monday, saying he had "enormous strength, he has very, very strong values, he has real determination to do what is right for people." Miliband, widely viewed as a possible successor to Brown, told the BBC there was no leadership election and that cabinet ministers were fully focused on their jobs.
"We are absolutely clear that we are going to go into the election under Gordon's leadership," he said. In a show of party unity, Brown will be joined at Monday's meeting by senior cabinet ministers Harriet Harman, Peter Mandelson, and Douglas Alexander, all expected to play prominent roles in the election campaign.
With Britain saddled with a record budget deficit after the worst recession in more than 50 years, the main parties have effectively already begun the election campaign with clashes over the economy and public spending. Brown announced a 300 million pound ($486 million) plan on Monday to provide free laptop computers and broadband Internet access for 270,000 low income families by March next year.
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