Gordon Brown, Leader of the Labour Party, became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.
Brown has a PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also holds the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.
Brown's time as Chancellor was marked by major reform of Britain's monetary and fiscal policy architecture, transferring interest rate setting powers to the Bank of England, by a wide extension of the powers of the Treasury to cover much domestic policy and by transferring responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Controversial moves included the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) relief in his first budget, and the removal in his final budget of the 10 per cent "starting rate" of personal income tax which he had introduced in 1999.
After initial rises in opinion polls, Brown's time as Prime Minister has seen a general fall in Labour's approval ratings and the Party's worst local election results in 40 years. Despite public and parliamentary pressure on his leadership, he remains leader of the Labour Party.