Brown defends leadership, calling party to "fight for the future"

Sep 27, 2009, 12:08 GMT

London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hit back at a volley of accusations over his leadership Sunday, telling the BBC that he 'did not roll over,' and called his struggling party to 'fight for the future.'

Brown was responding to charges made Saturday by his finance minister, Alistair Darling, that the Labour party, which has been in power since 1997, had 'lost the will to live.'

Labour is trailing in the polls to the Conservative party, and looks likely to lose a general election next year.

Brown in recent weeks has been plagued by accusations over the al- Megrahi affair - in which a terminally ill Libyan sentenced to life in Scottish prison for a 1989 terrorist attack was recently returned to Libya for compassionate reasons - and even suggestions that his health was failing.

'A setback can either be a challenge - that means it's an opportunity to do something better - or you roll over. I do not roll over,' Brown told a BBC interviewer.

'The setback for me is the challenge, the opportunity, to learn of course if you make mistakes and to do things better,' he added.

Brown said the party needed to 'prove we are fighting for the future ... the whole future of our economy and the whole future of our society.'

The prime minister then went on to say that Britain would act against 'old-style' bankers bonuses.

'Enough is enough. I am not going to stand by and allow people to return to ... the bad old days,' he said.

'Just as we will have a fiscal responsibility act to deal with public finances, we will come back and we will have a new Business and Financial Services Act as well that will ban the old bonus systems and make it impossible for firms to go back to using them.'

Brown was speaking as the Labour party gathered in the seaside resort of Brighton for its annual conference.

Brown went on to counter rumours that his eyesight is further failing - the prime minister is already blind in one eye. Brown said he had recently undergone a check-up which had showed no deterioration in his sight.