With Blair under fire, Brown rallies Labour Party faithful
BOURNEMOUTH, England, Sept 29 (AFP)
With public confidence in Prime Minister Tony Blair in a freefall, his main rival Gordon Brown sought Monday to rally the Labour faithful with a robust call for them to stay true to the party's values.
The chancellor of the exchequer's speech to the annual Labour Party conference, and the warm response it earned from delegates, set the bar high for Blair who Tuesday will be confronting his skeptics head-on.
"Have confidence in our principles," Brown said as he wound up a passionate defence of his economic policies.
"Have confidence that these principles can be advanced in Labour policies for our time," he said.
"Have confidence that Labour values are the values of the British people. This Labour Party -- best when we are boldest. Best when we are united. Best when we are Labour."
Brown's address in Bournemouth, on England's south coast, followed a new opinion poll Monday in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, revealing that 74 percent of voters now are dissatisfied or unhappy with Blair's government.
Seventy percent said Blair had "lost touch with ordinary working people," and 54 percent said it was wrong for Britain to get involved in the Iraq conflict.
The Labour party itself won the support of only 31 percent, the lowest since Blair took over the leadership in 1994.
Brown has long been regarded as Blair's main rival within Labour, and he remains untainted by the fallout that has followed the Iraq war, including the suicide in July of government weapons expert David Kelly.
Though looking tired and less photogenic than the prime minister, Brown -- in a sombre suit and red tie -- nevertheless managed to convey both passion and gravity Monday, earning him a standing ovation of some two minutes.
In a hall packed with fellow ministers and delegates, he touted the economic success of six years of Labour government, in a speech peppered with references to social justice and traditional Labour values.
"While America and Japan have been in recession, while half of Europe is still in recession, Britain with a Labour Government, pursuing Labour policies, has achieved economic growth in every year, indeed in every quarter of every year, for the whole six and a half years of this Labour government," he said.
He mocked the opposition Conservatives, saying it was Labour that would best guard the wealth of the nation.
"As long as I am chancellor, I will never ask you to abandon fiscal responsibility, never to set aside economic discipline, never to abandon long term reform for quick fixes, never to succumb to Tory short-termism," he said.
But on Iraq, Brown made only a passing reference, saying it was "right to back our leader Tony Blair" in his efforts "to bring security and reconstruction" in the wake of the US-led war against Saddam Hussein.
Political analysts expect Blair to use his speech Tuesday to try and reassert his authority over Labour in the face of internal opposition to his domestic reform agenda.
Most controversial among those reforms are plans to jack up university tuition fees, and the granting of more management autonomy to selected hospitals within the underfunded and understaffed National Health Service.
Brown's speech did not go without protest, however, as trade unionists staged a noisy demonstration in Bournemouth calling for more government action to stem a long-term decline in British manufacturing.
Some 2,500 workers took part in the protest -- a number meant to represent the number of jobs that the Amicus engineering union says is lost in Britain every week in the manufacturing sector.