London, March 27: British prime minister Gordon Brown would keep Alistair Darling in his position of finance minister if the Labour Party wins the parliamentary election, he said in an interview published on Saturday.
Darling has been in the role since Brown took over from Tony Blair in 2007 but there had been speculation that he would be replaced by education minister Ed Balls, a close ally of the prime minister, should Labour retain power.
Asked in an interview with the Guardian newspaper if Darling would stay on if he won the election expected on May 6, Brown replied: “Of course. He is doing a great job.”
Amid rising dissent in his own party last summer when six senior minister quit the government, there had been suggestions that Brown wanted to replace Darling but had been unable to do so because his own position was so weak.
Last month, Darling told a TV interview that the “forces of hell” had been unleashed on him by Brown’s office after he told a newspaper in 2008 that economic conditions were the worst in 60 years.
It forced Brown to deny accusations that he had ordered negative briefings about his finance minister.
Labour trails the opposition Conservatives in polls, although surveys suggest the lead is narrowing and the likely outcome of the vote will be no outright winner.
A poll on Friday found more Britons trusted Brown and Darling most to the run the economy, which has just emerged from its deepest recession since World War Two, than Conservative leader David Cameron and George Osborne, the party’s finance spokesman.
That followed Wednesday’s budget in which Darling promised a £2.5 billion ($3.7 billion) package to boost economic growth, higher taxes for the well-off and lower borrowing than predicted three months ago.
In the Guardian interview, Brown also detailed five pledges which will form the centrepiece of Labour’s election campaign.
These are securing an economic recovery; raising family living standards; building a hi-tech economy; protecting frontline investment in health, education and policing; and a promise to “strengthen fairness in communities” through controlled immigration, guarantees of education and apprenticeships for young people and a crackdown on anti-social behaviour.
—Agencies