Cameron Takes Over as British Premier After Brown Resigns

By JOHN F. BURNS
LONDON — Britain’s Conservatives returned to power on Tuesday after 13 years in opposition when David Cameron, who has built his future on a claim to have recast the party of Margaret Thatcher for a new century as more compassionate and less class-bound, took over as prime minister from Labour’s Gordon Brown.

Five days after a general election that left the Conservatives 20 seats short of a majority, Mr. Cameron, 43, cobbled together an awkward alliance with the Liberal Democrats to form the first coalition government since World War II.

The strength of that partnership will be tested immediately by the financial crisis facing Europe and Britain’s high levels of debt, which will call for deep and unpopular spending cuts. The new government will be under pressure to act swiftly to appease restive markets, which have threatened to batter the pound and downgrade Britain’s debt unless bold measures are taken.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats’ leader, will be deputy prime minister. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are far apart on many issues, from immigration to relations with Europe, and full details on what each conceded will not be public until Wednesday. But aides to Mr. Clegg said the Liberal Democrats would have five ministers in the new government, including Vince Cable, a former oil economist who has called for sharp spending cuts. The Liberal Democrats’ prized issue of electoral reform would be put to a voter referendum, though in its least far-reaching form.

The transfer of power took place with the swiftness characteristic of Britain’s parliamentary system. Less than 75 minutes after Mr. Brown fast-forwarded events by an earlier-than-expected resignation announcement at a lectern in Downing Street, Mr. Cameron stood at the same lectern as Britain’s new leader. In between, both men had met with Queen Elizabeth II to make the transfer formal.

Mr. Cameron has spoken of Britain’s need to undergo “an age of austerity” to try to shrink a $240 billion black hole in the government’s annual accounts, largely a result of prodigious levels of deficit spending by Labour during the global recession of the past two years. In his Downing Street remarks, he made clear that fiscal toughness would be a hallmark of his government.

“We are going to have hard and difficult things to do,” he said.

But the new prime minister also struck a note that echoed the inaugural address of one of his political heroes, President John F. Kennedy. He asked fellow Britons to turn their backs on a culture of selfishness, indiscipline and reliance on state benefits that Labour’s Conservative critics have depicted as characteristic of its years in power.

“And I want to help build a more responsible society in Britain — one where we don’t just ask ‘What are my entitlements?’ but ‘What are my responsibilities?’ ” Mr. Cameron said, “One where we don’t just ask ‘What am owed?’ but ‘What can I give?’ ”

He also used a brief tribute to Mr. Brown to sketch the compassionate ideals he outlined in the campaign, in an effort to remold his party from the no-nonsense, free-market, stridently anti-Soviet beliefs that drove Lady Thatcher’s 11 years in office.

“Compared with 10 years ago, this country is more fair at home, and more compassionate abroad,” Mr. Cameron said, attributing much of the credit for the changes to Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown served 10 years as chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair after the landslide that brought Labour to power in 1997, then succeeded Mr. Blair when he left office in 2007.

Even before Mr. Cameron went to Buckingham Palace to accept Queen Elizabeth II’s invitation to form a government, speculation centered on how long the pact with the Liberal Democrats would last. The party, which emerged in 1988 from a merger between a Labour breakaway group called the Social Democrats and the old Liberal Party, remains an often fractious mix of two competing traditions, with an older left-of-center group and a younger group around Mr. Clegg that is seen as more centrist and focused on issues of economic fairness, ecological responsibility and human rights.

Many Conservatives said they doubted that the Liberal Democrats could hold to the pledges they were believed to have made to the Conservatives, especially on measures to cut the government deficit and to introduce new discipline to Britain’s prodigiously expensive welfare state.

But some analysts said they expected Mr. Cameron to concentrate for a year on measures to stabilize the economy, husbanding ties with the Liberal Democrats as he goes. Aides to the new prime minister said Mr. Clegg had agreed to an austerity package that would be softened by Conservative concessions on issues at the heart of the Liberal Democrats’ election campaign, including relief for the poorest taxpayers and abandonment of a Conservative pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes on any estate valued at less than $1.5 million. But after that, these analysts said, Mr. Cameron might be tempted to call a new election in a bid to win a majority.

Minutes after stepping into 10 Downing Street, which serves prime ministers as office and home, Mr. Cameron took his first congratulatory telephone call as Britain’s new leader from President Obama, who invited him and his wife, Samantha, to visit Washington in June.

source: New York Times