Mandelson: Labor must fight like underdog

BRIGHTON, England, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson told Labor Party colleagues Monday not to give up hope, asserting that the next election is up for grabs.

Giving the keynote address at Monday's session of the Labor Party conference in Brighton, England, Mandelson acknowledged that dismal poll numbers showing Labor trailing the opposition Conservative Party make them the underdogs, but asserted the next election is still "up for grabs," The Daily Telegraph reported.

"We may be the underdogs," Mandelson told conference delegates. "But if we show the British people that we have not lost the fighting spirit and appetite for change … then we can win and will win."

The Telegraph said Mandelson urged his colleagues to show "fightback," saying the real choice for voters will be between Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "experience and change" and "the shallowness of (Tory leader) David Cameron."

But he also warned against lapsing into complacency, saying, "Just as we fight against a Conservative party that is still steeped in the old Tory attitudes of the 1980s, we must not allow ourselves to fall into old Labor thinking."