The United Kingdom’s Labour Party is meeting in the English coastal town of Brighton for its annual conference. It is the last such meeting before the general elections scheduled for next year.

In a speech to the conference, Minister of Finance Alistair Darling said he intended to do more to tackle the bonus culture in the banking sector. His announcement that he would never again permit greed and recklessness to bring the world economy in danger earned him a standing ovation.

Mr Darling also offered his support for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is currently the subject of much fierce criticism in the UK. Mr Darling said that were it not for Mr Brown so energetically tackling the economic crisis, the country would have suffered far worse than it has done.

The Minister for Economic Affairs, Peter Mandelson, said that despite the party’s low ratings in the polls, Labour could still win next year’s elections. This was contradicted by the results of a recent poll carried out by Ipsos MORI, which revealed that just one in three of all Labour MPs believe in an election victory for their party.

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