By Robert Mendick Published: 12:50PM GMT 20 Feb 2010
Link to this videoThe Prime Minister issued his rallying call at a meeting of activists in Coventry, in which he appealed to the electorate to "take a second look" at his party"s policies. He also accused the Tories of being out of touch with Britain"s "mainstream majority".
"My message to the people of Britain today is simple," he told the high-profile gathering attended by key cabinet ministers. "I know that Labour hasn"t done everything right.
Cameron"s personal lead over Brown halved in six months Give me a second chance, pleads Brown Brown launches Labour"s Operation Fightback Tories plan biggest shake up of tax system since the War Pre-Budget report: Higher income tax of 45 per cent on earnings over £150,000 European elections 2009: No wonder voters cant be botheredAnd I know - really, I know - that I"m not perfect. But I know where I come from, I know what I stand for, and I know who I came into politics to represent.
"And if you, like me, are from Britain"s mainstream majority - from an ordinary family that wants to get on and not simply get by, then my message to you today is simple: take a second look at us and take a long hard look at them."
Labour were "the changemakers" in the election, he said, setting out the four key themes for the campaign.
"First, we must secure the recovery, not put it at risk. Second, we must support new industries and future jobs.
"Third, as we reduce the deficit by half, we must protect and not cut frontline services. And fourth, we must stand up for the many not the few."
The timing of the speech, which coincides with Mr Brown"s 59th birthday, had prompted some speculation he could announce a snap election earlier than a poll on May 6, which remains the most likely date.
But he made no mention of timings other than to joke with his audience that there were 76 campaigning days left - a reference not to a national election but to the date of the local elections.
While Mr Brown"s speech noticeably omitted any pre-election policy announcements it nevertheless raises the stakes in the run up to the general election.
He arrived on stage to the strains of Jackie Wilson"s "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" after speeches from cabinet colleagues including Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary.
He then immediately targeted David Cameron"s opposition in a bid to exploit narrowing opinion polls and tap into what the party believes is a "submerged optimism" among the electorate.
Labour is gearing up for what it calls "Operation Fightback". Local activists are being sent campaigning material while voters in marginal seats are receiving mail shots.
Ministers are also being dispatched to key battlegrounds around the country. Mr Brown described the coming campaign as a "street by street" fight for victory on the doorsteps.
With political differences over how best to tackle the UK"s record £178 billion deficit dominating exchanges in the run up to the election, Mr Brown put recovery efforts in the top three places of his electioneering themes.
He accused the Tories of planning a series of cuts that would hit the "mainstream majority" and harm the economy: spending cuts this year; an end to cancer and GP guarantees; axing some child benefit and children"s centres; tax cuts for wealthy estates; retaining hereditary peers and overturning the ban on fox hunting.
And he seized on recent Tory document that mistakenly claimed more than half of girls in some parts of the UK were pregnant by the age of 18 - it is in fact 5%.
"Can they claim they know the aspirations of mainstream Britain when they so clearly understand so little of how we live?" he asked to cheers.
In a reference to the ongoing political row over how to pay for elderly care, he went on: "When it comes to the most vulnerable people in our society, if you put partisan point scoring before a consensus on social care, real families really suffer.
"If you frighten people with made up figures on crime, real families really suffer.
"And if you talk Britain down in the middle of a recession and undermine confidence, real families really suffer.
"Because government is not a game. Because when you peel away the veneer and actually look at what their policies mean, what you see is not the new economics of the future, it"s the same old Conservative economics of the 1980s."
Dismissing Mr Cameron"s claim that a changed Tory party now occupied the centre ground, he said the party had done nothing but "change their appearance, to give the appearance of change.
"To those who are beginning to wonder how to use their vote, ask yourself whether at heart you believe in fairness and individual opportunity," he said.
"Ask whether you want to keep on the road to economic recovery or to return to the same old social divisions of the Tory years."
"And so today I issue a call to every progressive to come together to fight for the values we cherish and the country we love.
"This campaign is not going to be won somewhere else by someone else - it"s going to be won street by street, school-gate by school-gate, workplace by workplace - it"s going to be won by you.
"If you believe in taking this country forwards not backwards then Labour are the change-makers in this election."
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