Brown Downplays US Fissure

Maliki vows new government won't team up with Iran

(NEWSER) - US troops must stand by the plan to depart Iraq at the end of 2011, Iraq's PM tells the Wall Street Journal in a lengthy interview. Despite wide expectations that nine months of post-election turmoil would extend the US presence, “the last American soldier will leave Iraq” as scheduled, he said. “This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed.” The country’s own government and troops can handle lingering threats, he said. More»

And I hated Gordon Brown

(NEWSER) - Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey, has just hit stores, and it’s loaded with juicy revelations that have Britain talking. Among them:

• Blair says he used alcohol as “a prop,” with his daily intake “definitely at the outer limit” of what was acceptable. “By the standards of days gone by I was not even remotely a topper,” he protests, adding that his intake was “not excessively excessive. I had a limit.”
• Much of the headlines have been dominated by his always-rumored but until now denied feud with Gordon Brown . Blair says he knew Brown would be a “disastrous” prime minister, and blames him for the party’s recent losses

Tory-Liberal Dem coalition talks continue

(NEWSER) - Gordon Brown stepped down as prime minister and resigned as head of the Labour Party today, as it became clear that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are on the verge of forming a coalition government. David Cameron, the head of the Tories, is expected to visit Buckingham Palace today to accept the queen's formal invitation to form a government, the BBC reports . More»

Conservative Party didn't win majority but got most votes, seats

(NEWSER) - In the wake of yesterday's no-winner election in the UK, Conservative Party leader David Cameron says he plans to form a government even though he failed to secure a majority in Parliament, the Times of London reports. He has the support of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who said Cameron has "first right" because his party won "more votes and more seats—although not an absolute majority." More»

Brown fails to make breakthrough in third televised talk-fest

(NEWSER) - Conservative leader David Cameron was widely seen as the winner of last night's third and final British election debate after Gordon Brown failed to make the breakthrough he desperately needed. The Conservative leader, in a debate focusing on the economy, promised to make sweeping budget cuts if he gains power and warned that Britain's economy is in danger of going the way of Greece's, the Washington Post reports. More»