Brown hits back after election rout

Gordon Brown, reeling from a drubbing in local polls, sought to allay voters' concerns over the economy yesterday in the face of taunts from an opposition that can smell victory at the next general election.

Mr Brown, appearing in Parliament for the first time since Labour suffered its worst local election result on record, said the Conservatives lacked substance and would jeopardise hard-won stability.

But Conservative leader David Cameron - on track to win a landslide if last Thursday's poll result were to be repeated in a general election due by 2010 - said Mr Brown had run out of ideas, had no vision and was full of empty words.

"The choice in the country is between a government that has created jobs, stability and growth and a Conservative Party that has got absolutely nothing to offer the people of this country," Mr Brown said in his weekly parliamentary joust with Mr Cameron.

He accused the Conservatives of nothing more than "slick salesmanship".

Mr Cameron retorted: "People expressed their view on the choice last week... If he had a coherent vision, wouldn't people have heard it by now?"

The Conservatives won an estimated 44 per cent of the vote in local council elections. Labour's share slumped to 24 per cent and it lost the London mayoral post to the Conservatives. The drubbing has sparked Labour mutterings about Mr Brown's suitability to lead the party into the next general election although most MPs and ministers have been publicly loyal.

However, in an opinion poll by Populus for The Times yesterday, 55 per cent of Labour voters said the party would be more likely to win the next election if Mr Brown resigned "to make way for a younger, fresher, more charismatic alternative".

Mr Brown plans a series of policy announcements in coming weeks and ministers are working on finding ways to compensate people who lost out from the scrapping of the 10p tax band.