Brown pledges change as PM

London: Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Britain's prime minister yesterday after years of waiting and promised sweeping changes in style and policy to restore trust in a government damaged by the Iraq war.

Queen Elizabeth asked the long-serving finance minister to form a government after Blair tendered his resignation at Buckingham Palace after giving an emotional farewell speech in parliament that brought one minister to tears and the assembly to its feet.

Blair, whose 10-year rule began with high promises but ended with his popularity badly dented by the 2003 Iraq war, stepped aside to give the Labour Party a better chance of winning a fourth consecutive term in the next election, due in 2010.

"This will be a new government with new priorities," Brown, 56, told reporters in a statement as he arrived at the prime minister's official residence at 10 Downing Street, his wife Sarah at his side.

"I've heard the need for change ... and this need for change cannot be met by the old politics," he said, pledging to reach out beyond narrow party interests and build a government that "uses all the talents".

Britons wanted change in the state-run health service and schools and housing, Brown said. They also wanted changes to build trust in government and to "protect and extend the British way of life". "I will try my utmost," Brown said, repeating the motto of his old school.

Brown received a boost from an opinion poll that put Labour just one percentage point behind the Conservatives.

Snippets

- Brown, 56, had a sporting accident as a teenager and lost an eye. A prodigious intellect, he went to university at 16.

- After university, Brown worked briefly as a lecturer and a television journalist before entering parliament in 1983, the same year as Blair. The two of them shared an office.

- Brown is the longest-serving chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister) in 200 years.