Gordon Brown quits as British PM

Prime Minister Gordon Brown resigned on Tuesday night after talks between his Labour party and Liberal Democrats for a coalition government failed, clearing the deck for Conservative leader David Cameron to head the new government.

59-year-old Brown tendered his resignation on the ground that he cannot command a majority in the House of Commons after the May 6 hung verdict, ending the Labour party's record 13 years in office.

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Brown said his party gave up attempts to form a government with the Liberal Democrats. Brown suggested that Cameron should take over as the next prime minister. In a voice slightly cracking with emotion, Brown also resigned as leader of the Labour party with immediate effect.

After the announcement, Brown, his wife Sarah and two sons travelled to the Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen and formally tender his resignation. After Brown's meeting with the Queen, Cameron will be invited to the Palace for an audience with Queen and begin the process of new government formation.

Brown's resignation came as the Conservatives appeared to be finalising a power-sharing deal with the third-placed Liberal Democrats, five days after the fractured electoral mandate. "I've informed the Queen's private secretary that it is my intention to tender my resignation to the Queen," he said in a voice choked with emotion as he read out from a statement in 10 Downing Street.

In last Thursday's general election, the Conservatives won 306 seats in the 650-member House of Commons --20 short of a clear majority of 326--followed by Labour on 258 and the Liberal Democrats on 57. However, after five days of talks between the Lib Dems and Tories, there was no immediate announcement of a deal between Cameron's and Clegg's party. But a senior Liberal Democrats official was quoted as saying the power-sharing offer from David Cameron's Conservatives was now "the only deal in town."

The Liberal Democrats declined to comment. It appears that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had secured some sort of power-sharing agreement but exact deatils of it were not yet available. Earlier Tuesday, Cameron had asked the Liberal Democrats to decide on the offer made on Monday about a referendum on their key issue of electoral reform. "It's now I believe decision time, decision time for the Liberal Democrats," said Cameron, adding: "I hope they make the right decision that will give this country the strong, stable government it badly needs and badly needs quickly."

Labour and the Liberal Democrats are ideologically closer, on the left of the political spectrum, than the centre-right Conservatives and the Lib Dems, although the electoral arithmetic of a Tory Liberal Democrat deal is stronger.

Image: Britain's outgoing PM Brown is greeted by Queen Elizabeth in a meeting in which he tendered his resignation at Buckingham Palace in London.

Photograph: Reuters