British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's keynote speech to his party has won him breathing space from a nascent rebellion, but only time will tell if he can win back skeptical voters, the British media said yesterday.
Newspapers praised Brown's address on Tuesday to Labour's annual conference as one of his best ever - although short on concrete measures, he attacked the opposition Conservatives and faced down party critics of his leadership.
But the press said Brown has his work cut out to prove to ordinary voters that he, with 10 years behind him as Tony Blair's finance minister, is best placed to lead Britain in these turbulent times.
"Brown's opponents, Labour as well as Tory, look smaller and a little taller,"said the Daily Mirror, adding: "Reports of the premier's imminent political death will indeed prove premature."
A commentary in the left-leaning Guardian said Brown "gave it his utmost and it was his best speech - as it needed to be."
But "for all the razzamatazz in airless party conference halls, few speeches ever change anything. The party now holds its breath to see if voters are still listening to anything he says," it said.
This view was echoed by a commentator in the Times, who wrote: "Mr Brown has won important breathing space. How long it will last no one knows."
"Team GB is safe for now," added the Sun, referring to Brown and his wife Sarah, who introduced her husband in a surprise move that was praised for setting a softer tone for the prime minister's unusually personal speech.
Brown admitted past mistakes but offered himself as the "rock of stability" on which Britons can rely.
He said "this is no time for a novice" - a jibe aimed at Conservative leader David Cameron, as well as possibly Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has been tipped as a Labour leader in waiting.
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly is to quit Brown's Labour government because she wants to spend more time with her family, an aide said yesterday.
"She indicated ... to the Prime Minister that at the next reshuffle he carried out, she would stand down," Kelly's special adviser said.
Media reports said the decision by Kelly, a devout Roman Catholic and mother to four young children, did not appear to be linked to calls for Brown himself to quit over Labour's poor opinion poll ratings less than two years before a parliamentary election.
Kelly had been an ally of the prime minister but the timing of her departure could overshadow his latest efforts to rally the ruling party behind him.
The adviser said Kelly, who has drawn criticism from some quarters for her links to the Catholic group Opus Dei, would remain in her post for time being. She could not say when Brown was likely to reshuffle his team.
After 11 years in power, Labour is some 20 points behind the Conservatives in opinion polls, putting the government on course for a crushing defeat at the next election due by mid-2010.
Kelly, now 40, became the youngest minister in the Cabinet when she entered the top echelons of government at the age of 36 after a series of swift promotions through the ranks.
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