Brown calls general election for May 6

Brown calls general election for May 6
By Jean Eaglesham and Alex Barker
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: April 6 2010 11:09 | Last updated: April 6 2010 11:09
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c2ad746-4162-11df-adec-00144feabdc0.html


Gordon Brown on Tuesday called an election for May 6, asking the British electorate for a “clear and straightforward mandate” to extend 13 years of Labour rule and “secure the recovery”.

Flanked by his cabinet outside Downing Street, the prime minister opened a campaign that gives him four weeks to overturn a clear Conservative advantage in the opinion polls to gain his first electoral mandate as leader. “Now all of us, let’s go to it,” he said.

The prime minister had earlier travelled the mile from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace, following a cabinet meeting, to ask the Queen to dissolve parliament a week on Tuesday.

His official announcement that the election will be held to coincide with local elections on May 6 kick-starts an intense campaign by all three main parties, vying to win a majority of the 650 seats contested.

Mr Brown said he would “fight for fairness” through the campaign, saying the country faced a “big decision” between keeping the “economy moving forward” or the threat of a “double-dip recession”.

Before Mr Brown had made the announcement, David Cameron, the Conservative leader, told supporters gathered by the Thames that the election was “the most important for a generation”.

“It comes down to this. You don’t have to put up with another five years of Gordon Brown ... if you vote Conservative you are voting for hope, optimism and change.”

Mr Cameron departed for Birmingham and Yorkshire, spearheading the campaign by shadow cabinet members in Scotland, Wales and all regions of England.

Mr Cameron’s party needs to break out of its southern heartlands to win at least 117 seats – its biggest total since the second world war – to secure a working majority.

The Tories have yet to open a sufficient poll lead to be confident of a majority, with the latest ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper giving them a lead of only four percentage points.

Although a separate YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper showed the Conservatives enjoying a 10-point lead and an Opinium poll for the Daily Express showed the same, such a margin still points to a hung parliament.

“We’re fighting this election for the ‘great ignored’. Young, old, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight,” Mr Cameron said. “They’re good, decent people. They’re the people of Britain and they just want a reason to believe that anything is still possible in our country. This election is about giving them that reason.”

The Tories will put a tax break for married couples at the heart of their manifesto next week, alongside last month’s pledge to roll back most of Labour’s planned one percentage point rise in national insurance payments for 2011.

Labour strategists admitted privately on Monday that the Tories had scored a tactical victory with their promise to cut the national insurance “tax on jobs”, which has won backing from business. “The Tories have had a good few days,” one cabinet minister said.

Another senior Labour figure blamed Mr Brown and Ed Balls, the education secretary, for overruling the chancellor of the exchequer’s desire to raise value added tax rather than national insurance.

Mr Brown is expected to lead the attack on the Tory plans on Tuesday, rehearsing his party’s central theme that only Labour can be trusted to secure the economic recovery. “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,” he said last night.

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, who has claimed the tax-cutting mantle for his party, struck an upbeat note on Tuesday.

“This is not a two-horse race between the two old parties, Labour and the Conservatives. People have got a real choice this time and I think that’s why this election is wide open. All bets are off.”