Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair on Wednesday to become Britain’s 52nd prime minister, charged with healing wounds over Iraq and restoring public faith in a Labour government in order to win a fourth consecutive term.
After waiting 10 years for Blair to go, Brown must contend with a resurgent opposition Conservative Party as he strives to emerge from the shadows of Blair’s leadership, refresh Labour and put his own stamp of authority on the top job.
Brown, finance minister throughout Blair’s premiership, will visit Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace at about 1:30 p.m. (1230 GMT). The queen will ask him to form a government and Brown will start appointing a team of new and old faces, expected to be completed on Thursday.
"People are hopeful there is going to be a change of mood and a change of pace very quickly," said Labour parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn, a critic of Blair and the Iraq war.
"The first priority of Gordon Brown has to be recognizing the disaster of the strategy in Iraq and making plans for the withdrawal of our forces," he added.
Blair continued to steal the spotlight with reports he was about to be named Middle East envoy for the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
But Brown received a boost from an opinion poll that put Labour just one percentage point behind the Conservatives and from the defection to Labour of a Conservative parliamentarian who slammed David Cameron’s leadership of the main opposition.
The Conservatives have surged ahead of Labour in polls since last October but a YouGov poll for Sky News on Wednesday put the Conservatives at 37 points and Labour at 36.
Earlier this week, one poll put Labour five points behind the Conservatives while another put Brown’s party ahead for the first time in eight months. The next election is due by 2010.