http://www.ft.com/cms/s/71a03938-6445-11db-ab21-0000779e2340.html
Security is our top priority, says Brown By Lionel Barber and James Blitz in London Published: October 25 2006 22:35 | Last updated: October 25 2006 22:35 Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, will almost certainly replace Tony Blair as the country's prime minister next year. Nothing in politics is ever certain - and there are many people in the ruling Labour party who doubt that this dour 55 year old Scot is an election winner. But no serious challengers have emerged, so the finance minister's desire to enter Number 10 in 2007 looks unstoppable. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Mr Brown did not want to discuss the succession. ADVERTISEMENT He focused on his current job and the economic challenges that Britain faces over the next decade, although he admitted the threat posed by extremists such as al-Qaeda meant that security was now the government's highest priority. "It's important that people realise that, in this fight against violent extremism, the talk about the destruction of Israel, the murdering of innocent people round the world, that America and Europe learn to stand together," he said. "What unites us are our shared values, above all the importance we attach to liberty of of individual. If we forget that what unites us is far more important than what divides us then we will be weaker than we should be in the fight against extremism." "The challenges labour faced in 1997 - when we came into power - were to ensure economic stability, to make sure we created jobs while keeping up investment and reform," he says. "But the challenges of the next ten years are different. The first on the list now is meeting the challenge of security and the threat of terrorism. We also need to come to terms with global economic competition on a scale that was not thought possible ten years ago. The environment is also a challenge. And this will lead to a number of changes in our domestic policy over the next few years." Mr Brown will flesh his plan to meet those challenges when he presents his pre-Budget report to parliament next month. What does he see as the strategic challenges ahead for the UK? One is to overhaul its transport infrastructure - still one of the UK public sector's weakest features. "One of the biggest things that's happened in Britain in recent years has been the big growth of our cities. Every city has performed a lot better - they are retail centres, financial services centres, recreation and leisure centres and education centres." Improving skills is also critical. "You have got to recognise that 80 per cent of those who will be in the workforce in 2015 are already in the workforce. So if you have a problem of skills it cannot just be solved by new recruits, it has to be solved within the workforce ... So in-work training will have an importance it has not had in the past." Above all, there is the issue of tax - where the Conservatives argue that the UK's Corporation tax rate - at 30 per cent - has long made the UK uncompetitive compared to neighbours like Ireland. Mr Brown is not concerned by this. "We have 250 foreign banks based in London. Eighty five per cent of the Fortune 500 companies in the US have a base in the UK." But he does not rule out some kind of move on this front. "This is a government that has been prepared to cut taxes when it has been able to do so. We will review aspects of corporation tax. of course. The challenge of being chancellor is budget to budget, understanding the taxes people want reduced and the investments people want made. The challenge is to get the balance right." He will be helped by the fact that UK economic growth for 2006 is now likely to reach at least 2.6 per cent according to independent forecasters, beyond the treasury's own forecast of 2.0 to 2.5 per cent. "Growth is faster than people had predicted a few months ago. It will surprise some people who thought last year we that we would be in a period of low growth that the economy has grown faster. The exciting thing about the figures is that the balance of the economy is better now, we have more business investment, manufacturing output is up, exports are doing well. So the economy is becoming more balanced as we move throughout this year." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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