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Brown rules out snap polls
WSN Network
London: British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ruled out a snap election after
allowing months of speculation through leaks by his closest aides,
even as opinion polls showed the Conservatives far ahead of Labour.
But Brown’s
decision on Sunday to declare he would not hold a contest next
month—or even next year, unless there were exceptional
circumstances, has prompted jeers and catcalls from opposition
politicians and the press.
Tory chief David
Cameron, whose party was variously said on Sunday to be 3-6 points
ahead of the Labour in polls, accused the prime minister of “great
weakness and indecision’’. The Conservatives rubbed in what they
called Brown’s “humiliating retreat’’ with the bullish satirical
charge, “Brown bottled it’’.
Brown’s U-turn
is being parodied by almost the entire British media as “Bottler
Brown’, with the press having a field day about his indecisiveness
and cynical manipulativeness. Almost every British newspaper said on
Sunday that Brown’s “dithering’’ has damaged his reputation for
strong leadership and as a self-confessed “conviction politician’’.
The Observer
said Brown is facing a full-blown “political crisis’’ and will “pay
for his unwise gamble’’. The Sunday Telegraph offered a brutal
analysis of the prime minister’s “climbdown’’ and one of its
columnists taunted Brown that his “colour will now be yellow’’ and
that he has “only himself to blame’’. The Sunday Times described
Brown as “all mouth and no trousers’’.
Brown explained
his reasons for ruling out a “mandate’’ election, even as the big
Labour lead he gained after he took over as prime minister from Tony
Blair on June 27, narrowed rapidly in the face of a resurgent
opposition.
In a BBC
interview, Brown set out his reasons for not going to the country,
claiming that he wanted to be judged on his “vision’’ for changing
Britain and not his “competence’’ at dealing with crises. He
insisted he had not been cynical and manipulative in encouraging
rampant speculation on a snap election. Brown justified months of
now-useless election fever, saying he had had a “duty’’ to consider
whether to hold an election, but decided against it so he could show
his “vision’’ for Britain.
But in a swipe
at Brown, Cameron responded with the accusation that the prime
minister “was not being straight... everybody knows he is not having
an election because there’s a danger of him losing it’’. Menzies
Campbell, leader of the third main Liberal Democrats, accused Brown
of a “loss of nerve’’.
10 October, 2007
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