Brown can win General Election — chancellor

By KUNA,

London : Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Secretary) Alistair Darling said Tuesday he is optimistic Prime Minister Gordon Brown can overcome his current political difficulties to “turn things round” and win the next General Election.


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He told BBC domestic radio that Labour “needed to set out a clear vision” and “recapture that conviction and zeal” it once had.

Darling, who is deputising for the prime minister while he is on holiday, said, “I think we can get through this.” In a wide-ranging interview, he said he was “looking at a number of measures” and had not “concluded exactly what we need to do.” The chancellor of the exchequer also argued that there were problems “in principle” and in “practicality” in relation to calls for a windfall tax on energy companies to counter public anger at record increases in fuel costs.

It was suggested last week that the cash generated from this would be used to help poorer families who will struggle to pay their bills this winter.

Darling said he would be working with energy companies to try to ensure that people could pay higher bills.

And asked if Foreign Secretary David Miliband would still have a job in government after his recent article on Labour’s future, which failed to mention Brown, he said “of course.” Darling said his colleague had been trying to get across that as long as the party was able to “recapture the same enthusiasm and zeal” it could win the next General Election.

Pressed on whether Brown had that zeal, he said, “He has and that’s why I have supported him over all these years.

“I think the prime minister is very focused on what we need to do to recapture people’s enthusiasm.

“The prime minister, when he comes back from his holidays, will set out very clearly what he intends to do, but I am very clear in my mind that provided we can get across to people what we’re for, the difference that the government can make, the clear principles of fairness that govern everything we can do, then we can turn this situation around.

“I’m optimistic we can turn things round and we can win,” he added.

Darling conceded that it was “very difficult to speculate” on what would happen to house prices in the coming year, but said that it was “perfectly true” the British economy would slow down.

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