Brown says good to be impatient and strong-willed

Brown must call a legislative election by June 3 and his Labour Party is trailing the Conservatives in the opinion polls, although the gap has narrowed since January and polls suggest neither party will win an overall majority.

"With me, for better or for worse, what you see is what you get," Brown said in a speech to business leaders at Thomson Reuters, arguing that it was not possible to separate policy from character.

"It's about not telling people what they want to hear, but telling them what they need to know," Brown added.

In portraying himself as a straight-talking, no-frills leader, Brown was implicitly drawing a comparison with Conservative leader David Cameron, his main opponent.

Brown was chacellor for 10 years until he took over as prime minister from Tony Blair in 2007.

Cameron, a former public relations spokesman for a TV company, is well-known for slick presentational skills including a habit of delivering long speeches without notes.

Labour has sought to portray Cameron, 15 years younger than Brown, as inexperienced and superficial, in contrast to Brown, who is a less fluent public speaker but a master of detail.

Brown has repeatedly attacked Cameron over campaign posters in which the Conservative leader's image appeared to be airbrushed to make it look more flattering.

The Conservative retort is that with Britain's public debt growing fast while its economy struggles to crawl out of recession, Brown's record is hardly a strong selling point.

POPULARITY DEFICIT

Brown faces an uphill battle convincing the electorate that he makes a better leader than Cameron. Polls have consistently shown that he is personally less popular than the Labour Party, while Cameron is more popular than the Conservatives.

A January poll by Populus found that when asked to put aside party preferences, 40 percent of respondents said Cameron would make a better prime minister to face a recession while only 29 percent favoured Brown.

"When I say that policy and character go together, it's whether you have a clear idea of what you want to do, whether you're determined to push that through, and whether you're sufficiently impatient and strong-willed to push aside the barriers that stand in your way," Brown said on Wednesday.

His personality has been in focus since the publication on February 21 of detailed allegations by a political journalist that he had terrified staff by shouting abuse at them and in some cases had physically intimidated them.

Brown, the son of a Scottish clergyman, has denied the specific allegations. Close allies, such as Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, have sought to put a positive spin on the media speculation, portraying Brown as a driven man who was demanding of staff but above all of himself.