London, Dec 30, IRNA , Prime Minister Gordon Brown has used his New Year message to say 2008 will be a year of “real and serious changes” in the UK.
The government would see through reforms in “vital areas” such as secure energy, pensions and health,Brown said, according to extracts leaked to the press Sunday.
Combating the threat posed by terrorism was crucial and there would be “measurable changes in public services” over the next year.
“We will ot shirk but see through changes and reforms in the vital areas for our future,” he said.
His New Year message, his first since becoming prime minister in June, also issues a bleak assessment of the world economy as Britain braces itself for a year of belt tightening in the wake of the credit crunch.
In a strong warning, which sets the backdrop for a campaign to revive his sudden decline in popularity, Brown tells Britons to prepare for ‘global financial turbulence’ in 2008, while insists that the country’s economy has a strong foundation to steer a course of stability.
His sober analysis comes in the wake of the credit crunch hit the UK in autumn, that caused the first run on a British bank in more than a century after the Bank of England bailed out the country’s fifth biggest mortgage lender, Northern Rock.
It also comes after Brown’s fortunes rapidly deteriorated after he refused to call an early general election in October, at a time when his popularity was buoyed during a ‘honeymoon period’ following his replacement of Tony Blair in the summer.
Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron, whose ratings have been boosted by the decline in support for Brown, used his New Year message to commit himself to working for a general election, even though one does not have to be called until 2010.
“I want 2008 to be the year in which we offer the people of this country the hope of real change, by setting out a clear and inspiring vision of what Britain will look like with a Conservative government,” Cameron said.