British party leaders go head-to-head as poll race kicks off

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Opposition Leader David Cameron braced yesterday for their final parliamentary clash before the May 6 election as campaigning gathered pace.

After Mr Brown finally called the election on Tuesday, party leaders wasted no time in hitting the campaign trail in what is expected to be one of the tightest election races in decades.

Mr Brown's centre-left Labour party is battling for a historic fourth term against Cameron's centre-right Conservatives, who have seen their double-digit opinion poll lead shrink in recent weeks to just a few points.

The two men were to go head-to-head in the House of Commons for the Prime Minister's last weekly question and answer session (PMQs) before parliament is dissolved on Monday.

The economy is shaping up to be the key election battleground as Britain tentatively emerges from a deep recession, and Mr Brown repeated his claim yesterday that the Conservatives would threaten the recovery. Mr Brown attacked their plans to scrap planned rises in payroll taxes as unsustainable given Britain's deficit of €188 billion.

"Britain is on the road to recovery. Now don't put that at risk. The Conservatives' policy will take six billion pounds out of the economy," he said in a television interview.

Mr Cameron is expected to attack Labour's tax plans in a visit to businesses in the northwest of England and Wales later Wednesday, highlighting how they will "kill economic recovery", a party spokesman said.

Speaking as he set off from his London home by bicycle early yesterday, the Conservative leader said he looked forward to challenging Mr Brown during their parliamentary clash.

"Every day is a big day in this election campaign and it's the last prime minister's questions so it's a chance to put some of the points on behalf of the whole of this country that the Prime Minister has to answer," he said.

"But this is going to be a long campaign, I can feel that already."

After he leaves the Commons, Mr Brown will field queries from members of the public submitted via e-mail or Twitter, in a session in central London that his party has dubbed "people's PMQs."

Nick Clegg, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, meanwhile gave a speech in London where he argued that only his party could clean up politics after a damaging scandal over lawmakers' expenses last year.

The Lib Dems have struggled to make their mark as the third party in a two-party system, although they could be key players if there is a hung Parliament with neither Labour nor the Conservatives winning a majority.

Mr Clegg indicated he would side with the party that wins the most votes, saying: "If there's a party that gets a stronger mandate than any other party then that party seems to me to have the moral right to seek to govern."

But he attacked what he said was "the corrupt two-party stitch up and secrecy of Westminster" in which both Labour and the Conservatives had blocked reforms on party funding, the expenses system and the unelected House of Lords.

"A vote for the Labour or the Conservative parties is a vote for corrupt politics," Mr Clegg said, insisting only his party could provide a fresh start.