British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told GMTV television yesterday that he would “take full responsibility” if his party is humbled in Thursday’s vote — a hint that he might step down as party leader if he loses power.
With most polls indicating no party will win an outright majority, senior Labour figures are attempting to woo the Liberal Democrats in an attempt to cling to power.
With just 48 hours until polling day, they suggested that Labour supporters should back centrist Liberal Democrat candidates in areas where the Lib Dems are in a close battle with the Conservatives.
“I always want the Labour candidate to win. But I recognize there’s an issue in places like... where my family lives, where a [Liberal Democrat] candidate is fighting the Tories, who are in second place. And I want to keep the Tories out,” Ed Balls, one of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s closest lieutenants, said to the New Statesman magazine.
In seats where the Conservatives and Labour were fighting close-run battles, Balls said Lib Dem supporters should “bite their lip” and vote Labour.
Another Cabinet minister, Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, dropped a similar hint when he told the Independent newspaper that people should “vote with their heads, not their hearts.”
The call came as Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron, and leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg geared up for a penultimate day of campaigning in the closest election for decades.
Labour, fighting to be re-elected to an historic fourth term after 13 years in office, trails several points behind the Conservatives. The latest polls showed Brown’s party in second place, just ahead of the Lib Dems.
The call for tactical voting came as the Financial Times announced it was supporting the Conservatives for the first time since 1987.
The influential daily paper said Labour needed “a spell in opposition to rejuvenate itself.”
Cameron’s party was “not a perfect fit, but their instincts are sound. They would create the best environment for enterprise and wealth creation,” an editorial said.
The paper expressed some misgivings, voicing concern about the party’s “reflexive hostility to Europe” and the inexperience of the Cameron team, but concluded that “Britain needs a stable and legitimate government to navigate its fiscal crisis and punch its weight abroad … On balance, the Conservative party best fits the bill.”
Cameron’s Conservatives received another boost when an Ipsos MORI survey for Thomson Reuters on Monday indicated that the party was performing strongly enough in key marginal constituencies to secure a slim overall majority, albeit of just two seats.
But the latest polls yesterday showed the election producing a hung parliament.
A ComRes poll for ITV television news and the Independent put the Conservatives on 37 percent, Labour on 29 percent and the Lib Dems on 26 percent.
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