British prime minister Gordon Brown will tomorrow unveil plans for cleaning up parliament, whose authority has been hurt by an expenses scandal, and try to regain the initiative after fervent speculation over his future.
Mr Brown, who has for now stamped out calls to quit in the wake of disastrous European elections and several ministerial resignations, wants to restore public trust in parliament after a scandal which has scarred all political parties.
"What we have to do now is to take action in order to modernise parliament to make it more transparent and make it more accountable," Mr Brown's spokesman told reporters today.
Mr Brown's new proposals seem aimed at defusing calls by Scottish and Welsh nationalists for an early national election as the only way to clean up parliament in the wake of the scandal over politicians' expense claims.
A motion calling for the dissolution of parliament, tabled by the two nationalist parties, will be debated by legislators tomorrow. Mr Brown's Labour Party should be able to muster its 63-seat majority to defeat the motion.
Mr Brown is expected to reopen the debate on electoral reform, look at ways to make the unelected upper house of parliament -- the House of Lords -- more representative and seek to legislate for an independent regulator of parliament.
The BBC reported that Mr Brown would include proposals on reforming Britain's "first past the post" voting system with an "alternative vote" method, enabling people to list their preferred candidates in order instead of voting for just one.
This would be put to voters in a referendum before it was implemented.
It will take some time to come to any conclusion about how best to change Britain's political system -- especially given a wide range of views across parliament -- but Mr Brown is keen to see some results before the next election, due by June 2010.
Labour fared poorly in last week's European elections. With its worst performance in a national vote since 1910, it slipped into third place behind the main opposition Conservatives and the anti-European Union UK Independence Party.
Polls point to a big Conservative win in the next British election and Mr Brown needs to win back support within his party as well as among voters by showing he has the policies to shape Britain's future after 12 years of Labour rule.
He is also banking on a turnaround in the economy to improve his and Labour's fortunes.
Disclosures about taxpayer-funded expenses claims by members of parliament -- ranging from porn films to moat cleaning and mortgages that had already been paid off -- have forced policymakers to put reform at the top of the agenda.
The scandal has been blamed for a low turnout in the European elections and for progress made last week by marginal parties including the far-right British National Party, which won its first seats in the European parliament.
In vowing to push on with his premiership, Mr Brown said he would throw all his efforts into cleaning up parliament as well as fixing Britain's recession-hit economy.
"The priority issue where we do need to move quickly is action to clean up parliament and introducing the independent regulator of parliament, ending the days of self-regulation of parliament," the spokesman said.