WESTMINSTER 2010:Relations deteriorate as Clegg claims it's a two- horse race, with Labour 'increasingly irrelevant'
PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown is expected to step up attacks on the Liberal Democrats with a warning to voters that a vote for them will put the Conservatives into power, following sharply deteriorating relations with Liberal leader, Nick Clegg.
Mr Clegg has insisted that he would not support any attempts by Mr Brown to form a government if Labour falls behind both the Liberals and the Conservatives in the popular vote in the May 6th election.
Claiming that the election is a two-horse race between his party and the Conservatives, he said: “Labour is increasingly irrelevant. The question now [about what would happen] is one in which the Labour party plays no role.”
A situation where Mr Brown tried to form a government even if Labour came third in the popular vote, but with the most seats, would be met with fury by voters and rightly blamed on the UK’s “potty” first-past-the-post system, he said.
Relations between Mr Brown and Mr Clegg, which have never been good, have worsened significantly in the wake of the latest exchanges, though Mr Clegg’s view, if followed through on, should equally rule out any quickly-imposed successor to Mr Brown as Labour Party leader.
"I think a party which has come third and so millions of people have decided to abandon them, has lost the election spectacularly, cannot then lay claim to providing the prime minister of this country," he told the BBC Andrew Marr Show.
Both Mr Brown and the Conservative leader, David Cameron, would have “problems with their own parties if they fail to deliver on all the sort of expectations they’ve raised” and would be “quite insecure”.
“So it’s not for me to second guess how their parties then react to leaders and leaderships that have not succeeded,” he continued, though he sidestepped questions about whether his view would change if the leadership of either party was quickly changed.
Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, Mr Brown’s closest ally, said Mr Clegg’s dismissal of Mr Brown had been very revealing because he “left the door open to David Cameron.
“I think it will focus people’s minds”, he said.
However, the former Liberal Democrat leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown – who once sought a coalition deal with Labour under Tony Blair – said Mr Clegg could not go into alliance with Mr Cameron, saying that “it wouldn’t work”.
Home secretary Alan Johnson, a long-time supporter of the use of full proportional representation, acknowledged that a third place finish would cause Labour problems after the election.
However, he said: “This is a fascinating argument for supporters of PR who, over the years, have been told it’s not the popular vote that counts; it’s the number of seats you win. Suddenly, we are being told it’s the popular vote that counts.
“Under system, it’s the number of seats you win that’s very important, because people are casting their vote under the current system.
“Under a PR system, they would cast their vote in different ways,” he said.
Labour has complained to the BBC about its election coverage, saying that issues are not being properly covered because of the focus on the televised leaders’ debate – but its attempts to get the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to sign up failed.