Gordon Brown today pledged to help the Britain out of the economic squeeze as he tried to recover from the double blow of a crushing by-election defeat and economic figures showing Britain heading for recession, reports London Editor John Hipwood.
The Prime Minister brushed off renewed pressure on his leadership during a visit to the West Midlands to address Labour’s policy forum.
He said he was “getting on with the job”, and added: “My full focus is on taking people through these difficult times.”
In his speech to the conference, the Labour leader said he understood the problems people were facing with their household budgets.
He declared: “We will do whatever is necessary over the next few months to help hard-working families through these difficult times.”
He was speaking after the Scottish National Party took Labour’s second safest seat in Scotland by 300 votes, overturning a 13,500 majority with a swing of over 22 per cent - enough to wipe Labour out if repeated at a general election.
The result, the latest in a string of election humiliations for the Prime Minister, led David Cameron to call for an autumn election.
The difficulties facing the UK economy were brought into sharp focus by figures showing growth of just 0.2 per cent between April and June. A particularly large fall of 0.7 per cent in construction output was further evidence of the impact of the credit crunch on building.
A raft of the UK’s housebuilders have shelved projects since March as would-be buyers struggle to get mortgages because lenders hit by the credit squeeze have hiked borrowing costs.
Responding to election, Mr Cameron said: “I think the Prime Minister should have his holiday, but then I think we need an election. I think we need change in this country, and that’s how change could come about.”
Telford MP David Wright said the present economic climate played a huge factor in last night’s poll result - and insisted the Prime Minister was still the right man to steer Britain out of the present doom and gloom.
l Doubts - See Page 6
27 Comments
Bring it on!
Get the Clown out and put the new labour disaster to bed once and for all.
Taxed to death, spied on, lied to, abysmal waste, Give us the opportunity to vote on the EU and hope we can stop the slide into the abyss.
Of course Gordon Brown is going to call a election in the autumn.
At the same time Turkeys will be voting for Christmas to be brought forward to August..
and I have also heard that foxes are planning to demonstrate outside number 10 and petition Gordon brown to bring back fox hunting!!!
This does seem a bit biased (the Star biased? How shocked am I at that suggestion!;) How come there is not a “Have your Say” on every story by default? or is it just a hot-air let off for the right-wing mister-angry?
I think Gordon Brown has made some headline making iffy decisions - but he’s up against the Blairists within his party who make sure the trouble is optimised. Perhaps they want one of theirs to take his place?
Bring it on Andrew - you watch what you wish for
a weak leader, a tough, old financing powerful organisation with opposite ideas to mr bikeless. We’ll have another set of leaders trolling through the CONservative party until Thaterism returns.
You’ll be free to buy freedom, free to be spied on, free to be blacklisted and free to be pay for all your teaching, training and health. You’ll be free to get on your bike to China when all the remaining industry is sold off to a communist star. The irony. (I know they’re not communist but..).
PErhaps you want boom-bust economics?
With Brown unable to assert his complete authority, we certainly need a general election early this autumn.
it doesnt matter who get in power they are all out for them selves and the poor guy on the street is just a satistic You Do Not matter to any of them each and every one will tax you to the hilt they will all make promises and then not deliver is it any wonder this country is in the mess its in with all the back stabbing and in house fighting what the point in voting cause at the end of the day they will all take your eyes out and come back for the socket if your just a joe blogg on the street
I smile every time I think of this mediocre dump and the Liberal morons who run it. going going gone!
DevilsChair HELLO! But is that not the way the country is being run now. EDF a French company on the brink of buying BE British energy. and if China is NOT a communist state then my name must be Gorden Brown….
I don’t think Mr Brown will call an autumn election, because at this rate he won’t be PM – There will soon be an almighty power struggle and Mr B will be a casualty, but unfortunately we will just get more of the same – The party has got to drop this “We know what’s best for you” attitude, (Mr Blair’s only really tangible legacy) but because they have this attitude they can’t change.
If Mr Brown wants to go down in history as a credible PM then give us a referendum on the EU, sort out the pensions fiasco – this wont be popular but neither is he, sort the emigration mess out, sort out the mess known as the Human Rights Act, get the troops into a position where we can start to bring them home.
When you’ve done this – Let me know and I will set you a few further tasks…
I’m astonished, that in the middle of a global financial crisis caused by the sheer greed of international capitalism, and the willingness of successive governments to pander to this, that we have correspondents who would have us put power back in the hands of people who undermined the rights of ordinary working people by attacking their trade unions, who cut taxes for the richest people in this country by a full 20 percent at a stroke, and who sold off our nationalised industries for a quick profit, leading to extortionate energy costs (along with massive profits for the suppliers).
In addition, these correspondents wish to see an acceleration in the loss of British workers’ rights and the export of British jobs to cheaper locations by denying us the protection that EU membership offers in both areas.
We need a government that moves further to the left - not one that moves further to the right. When has a right-wing government in history ever done a damned thing for the working man?
Perhaps in calling an election in the Autumn Gordon Brown would be a turkey voting for Christmas - but anyone on less than £100k per year who votes for the Tories is certainly one!
Why does Gordon Clown always bang on about families? What about other citizens or are we not important. More Labour prejudice.
any one who thinks the torys will win the next election is clearly deluded, will brown go to the next election ? 50/50 but will labour win one more election done thing.
The british public will not put the tory shower in with a spiv at the helm and basically the same policys the general public would be far worse off and most know it , there is on mistake the labour party made and that was getting rid of blair why?? and please dont any one dribble on about iraq/affghanistan the torys would have been there too .
the credit crunch is what is realy peeing every one off and tough luck its happening every where else too but perhaps many would not find themselves even worse off if they lived within there means .
Devilschair, if I can follow your remarks which I certainly don’t find easy, you obviously do not know it but your comments are some of the main reasons why this country is heartily fed up to the gills with this gaggle in Westminster which calls itself New Labour.
At the time of doing this blog, Brown and the whole motley shower in his Cabinet are ensconced with the Comrades of the Unions to find out what they (the Unions) want his Government to do in the forthcoming twelve months. Legal “Secondary Picketing” is just one of the things. You may be to young to remember where this lead to in the 1970s but if you are not to young and do in fact remember it, you will be aware that it brought this country to it’s knees and gave rise to the phenomena of Maggie Thatcher.
Recent strikes and the threat of more to come shows us all the hall-marks of a Labour Government, high taxes, strikes and labour unrest, these are their by-words. Presumably you support these “nasties”. For me, I support the Maggie Thatchers of this world and she, or one like her will be needed if this clown Brown and his clones continue as they are doing. And we haven’t even mentioned mass uncontrolled immigration yet have we. But then we shouldn’t be to hard on Brown/Blair should we, why should we worry that they have virtually given our country away. Blair, Brown and all the rest of them should be tried for treason.
I know one way he can help us is quit!!!!
high energy prices, high oil prices, global warming, wheat and rice rising threefold, usa depression, usa credit crunch, all the fault of a british prime minister? i think not. the former labour voters in crewe and nantwich and glasgow east are traitors to their cause and need to remember things external to this country can make for tough going. they need to remember the good things that have occurred over the last 11 years. people have short memories, at least we have not had 15% inflation for 11 years
and thanks maggie for making it possible for edf to buy our nuclear industry. on the subject of energy prices edf the french owned power company are putting up electricity 17% and gas 22%, but in france they are only allowed to put up prices which the french government will allow them to. prices are capped over there. is this one eu rule for france and another for britain.
well done gordon keep it up and lead us out of this mess, cameron can’t hang onto his bike let alone be trusted with a foriegn created crisis!
If Mr Cameron wants an election in the autumn perhaps he should begin to identify those policies he will change and or introduce that will be substantially different from this present government and therefore offer a better way forward for this country, so far he seems to be offering us very much the same mix as the Labour party.
The Conservative gains in the polls have been made on the back of a discontent being shown about the effects of present policies rather than a clear preference for any policies being offered by the Mr Cameron. This means that the Conservatives will win the next election by default as a belated reaction to Labour and its policies, and not because we have any realistic indication that they will do any better, which given that they will be pursuing the same agenda is extremely unlikely.
It really seems to me that you can NEVER have more than 2 or 3 terms of the same government.
The pendulumn will never stay swung in the same place, or put another way, NO system, be it mechanical, electrical, or political can EVER be perfectly stable.
So, on that basis alone, there will be a change, and, as another contributor (Ken Adams #16) has mentioned, this change (by reason of longevity of the present incumbents) will be by default, and not by quality of policy and potential to govern.
“Parliament” only works well if “each” side is regularly in “opposition”, so that checks and balances are in place, and political parties are regularly reminded that being in power is to represent the people (by vote),and NOT as a “right”.
On THAT basis alone, the present (labour) party must go.
perhaps the best solution is a hung parliament with the lib dems diluting any extremes on either side. i still do not think labour can be held responsible for these external problems we are facing. there are green shoots of recovery emerging, and if david cameron cannot look after his bicycle what chance has he of looking after you and me
Stuart,
Every working person has the right to withdraw their labour, subject to legally-constituted ballots. We should fight to retain that right, and lose it at our peril. There is no likelihood whatsoever of a return to legal secondary picketing - no union even has this on their agenda, so your assertion is simply scare-mongering.
We have recently seen an increase in strikes by the public sector in particuklar, as the government seems determined to make them solely responsible for pay restraint. If at the same time as trying to force below inflation pay rises on public servants this government were tackling the shamefully low amounts of tax that the very wealthy pay, or the obscene bonuses paid to city types, we might see a little less unrest.
As for the Labour government talking to the unions - that’s quite right and proper, and is done with a degree of transparency and openness. I’m sure if we examined successive governments’ contacts with the representatives of global capitalism or with regimes in areas of the world where human rights are not high on the agenda, we’d find far less transparency. Remember the Tories ‘Cash for questions’ scandal?
help us my cuttting taxes, come on gordon im beggin you, borrow, reduce public costs, and jsut giev us some of our own money baklc please so we can continue to shop and support the economy
the big thing at the moment is fuel prices, both domestic and vehicular, the chancellor and the PM need to act rapidly to reduce the DEMAND for enenrgy not the price, by reducing demand you will ultuimately reduce the price, but it will be more sustainable literally and environmentally, some policies I would like to see immediately would be - ring fencing of all energy VAT income for fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes, mandatory fuel efficiency targets for new cars by 2009, leading to phase out of gas guzzling SUV’s with tighter and tighter targets each year. I think new build homes need much tighter energy targets too, with solar panels being mandatory, also the Treasury should also look at a massive microgeneration programme and remove all taxes on solar panel manufacturers and installers and massively increase the grants they offer from the low carbon buildings programme to cover say 50% of the cost, so that by 2015, all (suitbale) homes in the uk have solar water heating
Green Guru - solar power water heating - are you forgeting that in the UK we only have 3 weeks of sunshine per year? The UK is not Malta mate unless you want everyone to just take 3 baths per year? Of course with all the CFO’s being released by aerosols that would be a very bad move
why does everyone look to the government to ‘do something’ to intervene in such situations, this is just the hard reality of economic down turns, and they would be wise to let it be, the economy goes in cycles, and when it dips, companies need to shed jobs, reality, get used to it, all our eneegy is on global markets and we use non renewable commodities to get it, so of course as its running out the price will go up, the government should do nothing the market will sort it, eg, by making solar more economic, and Y Mab you are clearly not very knowledgable on solar systems, photo voltaics only need light to operate, and its light for many many hours each day, plus the solar hot water systems, dont need hot hot sun, just normal british sunshine will suffice, this country is bathed in solar radiation, even if its a bit grey and wet, and market forces not government subsidies will deliver improvements in this area
Peter, certainly I remember the “cash for questions” scandal, I also remember the Conservative MPs and Ministers caught with their trousers around their ankles. Just as importantly I remember the never ending scandals of New Labour. Now, where do we start, - was it with Bernie Eccleston and the back handers for tobacco advertising - a bit more serious than cash for questions methinks. Then what about our friend Hinduja which resulted in our illustrious Labour Cabinet Minister having to resign over passport fiddles. Then let’s go to the “cash for peerages” with £15 million going into the Labour coffers by the back door so that even the Treasurer (Jack Dromey) knew nothing about it. Far more serious than a few Conservative chaps with an appetite for the less than salubrious ladies of the West End I think. Then we had Wendy Alexander failing to report donations which caused her to resign. Just to balance the sexy pecadillos of the Conservatives what about the New Labour Cabinet Minister who was caught importuning on Clapham Common. Yes Peter, those in glasshouses should not throw stones. Labour fiddles, scandals and downright corruption have long since put the Tory misdemeanors in the shade.
I have never said that the right to strike should be withdrawn, indeed I would be one of the first to man the barricades in order to retain it. As for the comments of Devon Salopian, does one really expect a comment in reply to his distorted comments. I have always said that in the face of a “melt-down” by New Labour which is now happening, those that support it would vote for an orang-utang if it was wearing a red and yellow suit.
Have been a Labour supporter all my life and was delighted when Tony Blair took power back from the Tories who in my opinion had sold the Nations assetts off and now we are reaping the results! however I am becoming disillusioned with New Labour who keep punishing the very people who supported them! 15 years of power has corrupted them! so who the hell do I vote for now? not the silver spoon tory brigade Never! looks like the BNP!!!!!!
I am sick of hearing morons saying “Brown is not always smiling like Blair was”
If this is basis on wich people elect a government,no wonder we have such a useless one.
Grow up for god sake,It is not the prime ministers job to clown around and make you laugh.
His role is to run the country and make important dessicions, and he is not doing well at it.
Blair was smiling (all the way to the bank)
At least Brown is so money orientated ,he made the right choice about the cassino.
If Brown is so concerend about families why is he increasing VED for millions motorists who are on low money,a car being their only way of getting to work.?
If you want someone the make you laugh go and see Ken Dodd
If Brown wanted to help poor families he WOULD STOP giving our money away in aid to other countries ie 30million to Palastine.
This 30million could have been used to reduce taxes in our time of crisis