Britain's Brown seeks to woo middle classes

Brown said Labour would create "more middle class jobs than ever before" if the party overcomes its lag in opinion polls.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Saturday sought to win over middle class voters ahead of a general election with promises of more jobs as his Labour Party struggles to stay in power.

Brown said Labour would create "more middle class jobs than ever before" if the party overcomes its lag in opinion polls and wins a national vote which must be held by June.

Brown has previously sniped at main opposition centre-right Conservative leader David Cameron for his privileged education and background.

That led the Tories to accuse him of fighting an old-fashioned, left-wing class war in a bid to shore up Labour's traditional vote -- in the face of looming defeat.

In a major speech to centre-left activists, Brown said: "Social mobility will be our theme for the coming election and the coming parliamentary term.

"A fair society is one where everyone who works hard and plays by the rules has a chance to fulfil their dreams whether that's owning a bigger house, taking a holiday abroad, buying a new car or starting a small business.

"This is the next project for New Labour.... The coming decade will provide the UK with more middle class jobs than ever before."

Brown also wrote in The Guardian newspaper on Saturday that he wanted to see "an expanded middle class, not a squeezed middle class".

"Opportunity and reward cannot be hoarded at the top, and it is not enough to protect people at the bottom," he said.

Labour's manifesto would be pitched at "anyone who wants to get a home, start a business, build a career or save for their children's future," the premier wrote.

The Conservatives blasted Brown's latest move.

"One minute Gordon Brown's a class warrior, the next he is a friend of middle Britain," said Tory Treasury spokesman Philip Hammond.

"Middle Britain won't forget that it was Gordon Brown who destroyed their pensions, increased their taxes and crippled social mobility.

"The idea that a man who has spent his whole career at war with the middle classes can be their champion is laughable."

Meanwhile, Brown's de facto deputy, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, said veering to the left was "not a winning strategy, as every member of the government knows".

"The election is not won by us, nor is it yet lost," he told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Mandelson also said the new 50 percent top income tax rate for those earning more than 150,000 pounds (244,000 dollars, 170,000 euros) a year should be abandoned as soon as the public finances allow it.

Elsewhere on Saturday, Britain ruled out copying the United States by proposing a special tax on banks to recover state funds used to bailout lenders during the financial crisis.

Finance minister Alistair Darling told The Scotsman newspaper that the government would not be matching a proposal announced by US President Barack Obama on Thursday for a new fee on major banking firms.

He added that Britain would recover state aid by eventually selling stakes recently built up in rescued British banks.