Brown's Labour Party suffers crushing defeat at council elections; PM's office at stake

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has accepted responsibility for his party's defeat

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Local election results showed Conservative Party secured 44 percent of all votes cast, while the Labour trailed the Liberal Democrat on 25 percent with a miserable 24 percent.

Brown has accepted the blame for the crushing defeat of his party but said he was still confident of winning the next general election.

"I feel responsible. There are no excuses on my part at all," Brown said, adding that his government had made mistakes, including the abolition of a 10 percent tax band, which hit low earners and is seen as a key factor in the election losses. The prime minister admitted that he had also spent too much time worrying about the detail of his job and failed to connect with the people.

However, Brown said that there were no talks of leadership challenge in his party and "it is time to get on with the job."

"I'm resolute and determined and I've got conviction and ideas and I'm not going to be put off by a few days' headlines from the job that I'm determined to do for this country," he said.

However, Brown admitted that he has not been successful enough in identifying with the ordinary voters as his predecessor Tony Blair had been.

"I'm not the same as Tony Blair, I'm a more private person as you rightly say, but I also recognize in this job people have got to know who you are, it's an open book, where do you come from, what do you believe in, what are you about-" he said in a BBC interview.

"I come from a pretty ordinary background. The real me is someone who understands at root all the challenges that ordinary families face," Brown said, adding that he would get out of the Westminster bubble "far more often" and tour the country to connect with voters and listen to their concerns.

"Perhaps I have spent too much time . . . looking at the detail to solving people's problems," he said. "But to solve people's problems you have got to understand their problems."

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