Gordon Brown's Tory appeal ignites poll fever

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor

Last Updated: 2:34am BST 03/09/2007

Gordon Brown today heightens election fever with a direct pledge to Conservative Party supporters that he intends to be a prime minister who includes them in his government and acts on their behalf.

In the clearest sign yet that Mr Brown is preparing the ground for a poll next month, he said Labour would also have to get used to the move away from old-style factional politics and towards a government that unifies the country.


	Gordon Brown lays out his vision for Britain, happy that he is ahead of David Cameron in the polls and clearly considering calling an early general election

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph that marks the start of the new political season, Mr Brown said: "I want us not to be in any way sectional but be a government that genuinely unifies the country.

"The reason that people are fed up with the old politics of division is that people recognise that we face new challenges and these challenges need to be met in new and different ways."

Today the Prime Minister is expected to announce that another Tory MP is prepared to work for him.

The MP will not become a Labour MP, but Mr Brown will put him in a role that will illustrate his determination to show that his flurry of "outside" appointments in June was not a one-off.

"People also recognise that there are new ideas that come from people with something to offer but are often from outside traditional politics and certainly outside one particular party," he said. "It's the responsibility of the Government and leaders to draw on these new ideas."

The direct appeal to Conservatives to join him will put further pressure on David Cameron, the Tory leader, before a possible early election.

Asked about his planning for an early campaign, Mr Brown refused to repeat his previous assertion that new party leaders did not need to seek a fresh mandate from the public when they became prime minister. Sources close to Mr Brown say that is significant.

They also admit that "all the calculations" about an early election have changed over a summer that has seen Mr Cameron stumble and Mr Brown entrench his position. That makes an autumn election more likely.

Mr Brown will this week meet his key advisers to decide whether to take advantage of sustained poll leads and Mr Cameron's poor run by going to the country next month.

Until recent days sources close to the Prime Minister have played down the idea, but it is now being given serious thought. They were buoyed by last week's Daily Telegraph survey which gave Labour an eight point lead. Mr Brown's personal ratings over Mr Cameron have soared since he took over in June.

The success of his attempt to woo Tory voters further will ultimately decide the result of the next election. In his attempt to make his a government of all the talents, the Prime Minister has already brought outsiders such as Sir Digby Jones, the former CBI leader, and Admiral Sir Alan West into government posts.

It emerged yesterday that the Icelandic businessman Johan Eliasch, who loaned the Tories £2.6 million, is withdrawing his support after becoming disillusioned with Mr Cameron's performance.

Both Tory "defections" will unsettle Mr Cameron and the possibility of Mr Eliasch calling in his loan could present a financial headache.

A YouGov poll for GMTV today has Labour on 38 per cent, the Tories on 35 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 15. There is also widespread support for an early election, with 42 per cent of voters saying they would like one this year.

Mr Brown's supporters are aware that if they strike now and secure close to a 100-seat majority they will have a mandate for probably two full terms.

In the wide-ranging interview, Mr Brown's first with a quality newspaper since he entered No 10, he disclosed how he intends to force Mr Cameron off the centre ground. "I want this government to be not partisan but speak for the whole of Britain. I want us not to be in any way sectional but be a government that genuinely unifies the country. And I will tell my own party, too."

The European Union "treaty" does not need a referendum, he maintained. However, in the first sign that there could be some "wriggle room" Mr Brown pointed to next month's inter-governmental meeting in Lisbon as a key moment.

If Britain's red lines are in any way eroded Mr Brown will think again.

"It's very important to me - and the country - that having said these things and having achieved these red lines that it is also in the detail from the inter-governmental conference. That's where the focus of the debate should be."

But the prospect of an October election also has a potentially huge impact on EU negotiations. Privately, advisers to Mr Brown are saying that they may have to pick an argument with Brussels over the treaty and "see it off" if the country was about to go to the polls.

Strategists are aware of the impact it could have on Labour votes and they are keen to take away as many angles of Tory attack as possible.

Interview: Gordon Brown mulls early election

Last Updated: 2:48am BST 03/09/2007

In an exclusive interview, Gordon Brown tells Andrew Porter of his desire to reach out beyond Labour's traditonal base

Gordon Brown returns to the political frontline this morning. If he feels like he has hardly been away, that is because he has not.

No Caribbean holiday for three weeks. No yachts. No pop star hospitality. The Prime Minister managed four hours in Dorset with his wife and two young sons before rushing back to London to handle the foot and mouth outbreak.

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For the rest of the summer he has split his time between his new Downing Street home and his Scottish base in Queensferry. He has used the August "holiday" to think about how he intends to cash in on his current prolonged honeymoon period.

Mr Brown is seriously considering an October election and will this week meet his trusted advisers to assess whether it is time to go to the country.

Ed Balls and Ed Miliband - long-time key lieutenants and now Cabinet ministers - will listen to the views of Deborah Mattinson, Mr Brown's personal pollster. Spencer Livermore, another member of the inner circle, will add his assessment of Labour's chances in an autumn poll.

Mr Brown has written most of his first conference address as Prime Minister and will deliver it to an exultant party later this month in Bournemouth. He has brought the speech forward to the Monday of conference - a move that has, in the fevered "will-he won't he" atmosphere, been seen as a sign that he may call the election that day.

Giving his first major interview to a quality newspaper since he arrived at No 10, he looks and sounds like a man who has read the political runes and likes what he sees.

The long, wet summer has seen David Cameron buffeted by a series of mistakes, a run of poor polls and suffering from comparisons with the serious figure at No 10 who has made the political weather work for him.

Speaking in his Downing Street office, Mr Brown seizes on the Tory leader's latest forays into "populist" areas such as immigration, tax and crime and offers his own contrast.

"When the heat is on, political parties can reach for their own comfort zones and territories, to appease a particular faction this way or that," he says. "But that's not modern politics. Modern politics is about reaching out, always trying to go beyond your traditional base.

"I see British politics as us always seeking to unite and to be part of an enlarged centre ground. And us reaching out to those who might not be thought of as our supporters or identified with us. By showing them that we can meet these challenges we can have a better country and have a more positive view of the future of Britain."

He clearly thinks that the Tory leader has buckled and returned to the core vote strategy that ultimately condemned Mr Cameron's three predecessors to failure. He believes Mr Cameron's gimmicks are taking on a desperate edge and it may well lead to a general election next month.

Mr Brown says: "I don't think the public want to be governed that way in the future. They want politicians to recognise that there are many people outside the traditional arena with something to offer. They don't want politicians resorting to gimmicks and getting quick headlines."

Mr Brown repeatedly points out that he is pushing for more people outside traditional politics to join his big tent. And if he can snare a few more Tories then all the better, as it wounds Mr Cameron.

He says: "I talk to a lot of Conservatives and they want a politics that is not as partisan as the past. When I came I said I wanted to draw on people outside the traditional politics - people who had never identified with the Labour Party - and some of them are now in the Government.

"We've had not just an MP [Tory defector Quentin Davies] but other people saying there is a better way of doing politics in this country."

For someone who spent much of the past decade at daggers drawn with Tony Blair, it causes a wry smile when Mr Brown says: "People are fed up with confrontational politics to be honest."

But he adds: "By my very nature I want to be someone who speaks for the whole of the country. We want to draw on many voices and non-sectional politics."

Central to his plan of neutering the Tories is a strategy to crowd them out of the so-called middle ground.

"What the Conservatives as an organised political party do and the decisions they make are a matter for them. What I will continue to do is seek to broaden the centre ground and enlarge it, then together we can start to make a difference."

Since he took over from Mr Blair the challenges have come from everywhere to test Mr Brown. The failed bombings in London and Glasgow; the floods; and foot and mouth. Then in the last fortnight the liquidity crisis in the debt market.

None of them has rattled him and he says he has learnt from them that you "have to act decisively and quickly". His wife and children were left with their buckets and spades on the beach as a result.

In the last 10 days crime has soared up the agenda in the wake of the murder of

11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool.

Mr Brown's voice becomes sombre and hushed when he talks about the boy.

He says: "This was an unspeakable crime and it shocked the whole country and every parent.

"When they heard the father and mother of young Rhys Jones say they had already bought his new uniform for secondary school and prepared the way for him to start his new school they shared their shock. No parent should have to undergo the suffering that has befallen this family."

Mr Cameron has been quick to link a spate of shootings, murders and general anti-social behaviour to the failure of Labour's attempts to tackle a "broken society."

It is not unlike the way a young Mr Blair used the James Bulger murder to depict John Major's Britain as a failing society.

Until today Mr Brown and his Home Office ministers have remained largely silent and let the Tories make the running.

But again Mr Brown says he will not be governed by headlines. And his private focus groups tell him that people, while concerned about crime, are unimpressed by Mr Cameron's "seizing" of this issue.

The Prime Minister says: "On gun crime we have to act decisively to halt the supply and circulation of guns.

You will find away from the headlines a lot of work has been done to identify those communities where there is a very particular problem of the circulation of guns."

He wants the importation of guns tackled so they do not get so readily in the hands of young people. And he promises laws if they are necessary.

As for a "broken society", he clearly thinks it is another gimmick from a floundering Tory party.

Mr Cameron is also, along with The Daily Telegraph, calling for a referendum on the new European Union "treaty."

Mr Brown says his "red lines" have been secured and unless those red lines change there is no need for a vote on the treaty - which is almost exactly the same as the old constitution.

But, crucially, that does leave him some wriggle room. In fact, if he does call an October election moves would likely be made to delay further progress of the treaty at next month's inter-governmental conference, where European countries want it to be finally agreed.

He says: "Let's put it this way, it's very important to me - and the country - that having said these things and having achieved these red lines that it is also in the detail from the inter-governmental conference. That's where the focus of the debate should be."

In short, Mr Brown is acutely aware that Brussels draughtsmen could produce a legal document that subtly erodes the assurances in the way of opt-outs, opt-ins and protocols that he says he negotiated hard for. He says he is satisfied but will be watching like a hawk to see if anything is changed next month.

So the possibility of a

U-turn is still in play. And Mr Brown has already made a few. Within days of taking over from Mr Blair he scrapped plans for a super casino and announced that treating cannabis offences seriously again would be a priority.

He explains his decision and it is clear that his upbringing and values were behind his reversal of a policy on gambling even Mr Blair's admirers struggled to explain.

"I come from a background with a very strong family with a strong religious upbringing where I was taught to think about the importance of the work ethic and treating people fairly.

When you look at the issue of casinos, these areas that wanted casinos to help regeneration, I kept saying to myself, 'Isn't there a better way of regenerating these areas?' I think that's the right way to look at this problem.

"And when I looked at cannabis it seemed to me that we were sending out exactly the wrong signal to young people. At these ages people need to know that there is a view taken by society as a whole about the importance we attach to the use of drugs. And on drinking it's an issue too.

When young people are getting access to drink very easily it's a concern and

there are things we can do about it."

Aides talk about relations with Nicolas Sarkozy, the new French president, and how the two men "get more done in 10 minutes than Blair and Chirac did in 10 years".

Asked about Iraq, the Prime Minister reiterates that there will be no early withdrawal from Basra. "There is no timetable for exit. There are decisions we need to make to go from combat to overwatch. But we have obligations both to the government of Iraq and the international community."

He also states that Afghanistan is "the frontline against the Taliban", and "we know if there was no Nato and coalition presence the Taliban would be moving back in." But, he says, "I would like to see burden-sharing".

He talks about the death of Capt David Hicks last month in Helmand. The 26-year-old officer was mortally wounded but refused treatment for his shrapnel injuries.

Mr Brown said: "That was an incredible story of courage. He refused morphine so he could carry on leading his men while they were under attack."

Later this year the Prime Minister will publish a book with stories of British military heroism.

Capt Hicks is now in line for a posthumous Victoria Cross. He would be the first officer to win one since Colonel "H" Jones in the Falklands.

Mr Brown also for the first time explains why he is still determined to keep his family and children in particular away from the glare of publicity.

It is in contrast to Mr Blair, and, some would say, Mr Cameron. "I choose to be in public life.

My children didn't have the luxury of having that choice and it's right for me to make sure that wherever possible they have the freedom to grow up free of the glare of publicity. They are young children who want to make friends and it's important they experience that.

"I must make sure they have an ordinary childhood.

"The only purpose of being in politics is to serve your country. If you are not able to discharge that duty you should not be in that job."

During his "coronation" period in June Mr Brown repeatedly said he would not be calling an election when he became prime minister as he did not feel the need for a mandate.

When asked if that was still the case he just laughs. A lot of his supporters think Labour can be laughing all the way to an increased majority if their leader strikes now.

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