Brown crushes bid to force election

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Scottish and Welsh nationalists spearheaded the bid to dissolve Parliament, with Tory and Liberal Democrat support.

But the move was scuppered by 340 votes to 268 just two days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown saw off attempts by his own backbenchers to remove him from office.

The SNP's Westminster leader Angus Robertson said an early poll was the only way to rebuild public trust and confidence in Parliament.

"In truth the Government's case against an election has nothing to do with the need to pursue Parliamentary reform or to manage the economy," he said.

"It is pure, naked self-preservation in the wake of the worst electoral showing by the Labour party in 90 years.

"It's clear the public believes that this Parliament is without legitimacy. It is without credibility and it is without trust."

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain rejected the call, warning that to dissolve Parliament would be to "walk away" from the challenge of reforming Westminster's politics and to "turn our backs on the British people" at a time of economic need.

He claimed the SNP had a hidden agenda of wanting to see a Tory Government, which would inflict "mass unemployment, education cuts and hospital closures" on Scotland "so they could try to ride a wave of revulsion into independence".

He said an election now would simply be a referendum on MPs' expenses, sparking "weeks and weeks of instability and uncertainty" for the economy.