Monday, November 29, 1999

UK leaders make frantic final push for votes

News posted by www.newsinfoline.com

Britain's party leaders planned to campaign through the night on Tuesday in a final push for votes, two days before a parliamentary election that opinion polls suggest could redraw the political map.The latest surveys suggest David Cameron, hoping to end his centre-right Conservative Party's 13 years in opposition, will either win a slim majority in parliament or fall just short of taking overall control of the lower house, depending on how the votes are spread across Britain's 650 electoral districts.Cameron will campaign overnight on Tuesday, seeking support from the third of voters said to still be wavering.The rise of the Liberal Democrats, the perennial third party in British politics, has added to the unpredictability and turned the contest into a three-way fight.Some polls suggest the Lib Dems could overtake Labour as the second party in terms of vote share although the quirks of the electoral system mean Labour will win many more seats.However, the Lib Dems could hold the balance of power in any inconclusive election and will use that to push for a proportional voting system.Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in power since 1997, hinted that he would take the blame if his Labour Party fails to win a fourth consecutive election on Thursday, as most polls suggest.Although Labour trails the opposition Conservatives by seven or eight points in the latest polls, Brown said Labour had not given up and many voters were undecided as the close-fought campaign entered its final stages."I will have to take responsibility and I will take full responsibility if anything happens," Brown told GMTV, a breakfast television show. "But I still think there are thousands of people who have still to make up their minds.""WORST PRIME MINISTER EVER"Brown's campaign was undermined by one of his candidates who described him in a local newspaper interview as "the worst prime minister ever", in part due to his crime and immigration policies.Manish Sood, standing for election in Norfolk, eastern England, told Sky News he stood by his comments: "All the policies he is bringing in are a total disaster."The Financial Times newspaper gave Cameron a boost, switching its support from Labour to the Conservatives. It said Cameron's party will be better at tackling Britain's record budget deficit and the recovery from the worst recession since World War Two."We are taking absolutely nothing for granted," George Osborne, the Conservatives' finance spokesman and election co-ordinator said in a message to supporters. "I want us to fight to persuade every single voter that is still undecided."Finance minister Alistair Darling said Osborne and the Conservatives would threaten the fragile economic recovery."Are you happy to bet your job, your house, your families' future on the judgement of George Osborne -- a man with an unbroken record of getting it wrong," Darling said in a speech in London."His inexperience is a risk. His judgement is a risk."Two of Brown's senior ministers appeared to appeal to centre-left Labour supporters in some close-fought electoral districts to consider voting for the Lib Dems to undermine the Conservatives.Welsh Secretary of State Peter Hain said Labour voters in marginal seats where either the Lib Dems and the Conservatives were likely to win, should "vote with their heads not their hearts". Schools Secretary Ed Balls said he wanted to "keep the Tories (Conservatives) out" in very close districts.(Editing by Diana Abdallah)

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