Gordon Brown confirmed as PM

LONDON: Gordon Brown, sometimes nicknamed 'Gordo' or the 'great clunking fist', has formally been confirmed as the next leader of Britain's governing Labour Party and the UK's prime minister after Tony Blair leaves Downing Street in six-and-a-half-weeks’ time.
Brown, currently the chancellor, has been the favourite to succeed Blair for months. On Thursday, the brooding Scotsman's hopes finally came true when he became Labour's uncontested candidate for the top job.
Brown was nominated to be the next leader by 313 Labour MPs, out of a possible 353, which hands him the keys to No. 10 unopposed.
But Brown's coronation – six weeks before Blair officially resigns – triggered a political row with opposition leaders criticising Labour's current “caretaker government,” which they claimed leaves the administration paralysed and ineffective.
David Cameron, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party and Menzies Campbell, who leads the third party Liberal Democrats, said the Labour party's internal political processes devalued democracy and accountability.
Cameron said Brown's coronation made Blair's promised "long goodbye" ridiculous, leaving Britain in a state of political and administrative limbo as a lame duck prime minister stubbornly stays in office and the incoming premier unable to make decisions.
Liberal Democrat leader Campbell added that Brown's coronation made it "all the more important that there should be a general election now. The country is surely entitled to pass judgement on whether he should become the most powerful politician in the country. A coronation is good neither for Labour nor Britain. It is no way to install a prime minister when even his own party doesn't have a choice."
Cameron said, in agreement, that Brown would have no mandate to lead the country because Blair stood for election in 2005 having promised to serve a full third term as prime minister.
Brown's final confirmation as prime minister comes just seven days after Blair announced his timetable for departure. A day later, Blair formally endorsed his long-time political rival for the top job, rendering almost null and void the Labour left-wing's attempt to offer a rival candidate to Brown.
Brown's confirmation came just hours after his only rival, John McDonnell, a Labour left-wing MP, admitted defeat in his attempt to challenge the "undemocratic" lack of choice for Labour leader.
McDonnell, who got just 29 nominations from MPs to challenge Brown, needed 45 to be able to trigger a contest.
On Thursday, McDonnell admitted it was "mathematically impossible" for him to reach the threshold. Even as he congratulated Brown, McDonnell said it was a shame Labour party members would be denied “an opportunity of participating in a democratic election for the leader of this party. I had hoped by standing I would have given them a voice in this crucial decision.”
Brown's confirmation has set off ever-louder calls for Blair to "go now" with some sections of the British media asking why the incoming prime minister has to wait so long for Blair to give way.
In a thundering leader emblazoned across its entire front page, The Independent said: “We would have preferred a full-blooded contest to decide Labour's next leader. Even a half-hearted contest in which the other participant was a token, left-wing challenger such as John McDonnell, would have been healthier for the party and the country than a coronation for Mr Brown. But the plain fact is that the Labour Party has been unable to put forward even a single challenger. And that raises an inescapable question: What are we waiting for?... Rather than waiting until 27 June to make the trip from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace to hand in his resignation, Mr Blair should hand over power to Mr Brown immediately.”
Repeating the whispers growing louder in Westminster's clubby political village, the paper added, "It serves the interests of no one for Mr Blair to delay... we cannot allow the country's future to be held hostage by the self-indulgence of one man. In truth, there has been too much of that already."
The paper said that the new British prime minister Brown should be allowed to represent the country at two forthcoming international summits "at which important decisions over the future of Britain will be taken – a future in which, let us remember, Mr Blair will play no direct part."
It said, in the strongest, possibly most cogently-worded appeal for Blair to end the transition period now and leave Brown to do the job: At the EU summit in Brussels, an agreement is likely to be forged over the future of the EU constitution. Then, at the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm the heads of state of all the world's richest countries will discuss a common approach to climate change. Britain's new Prime Minister should represent us in both."