Prime Minister Gordon Brown has insisted Labour can retain the support of Sussex voters who helped the party to power more than a decade ago.

Speaking exclusively to The Argus, Mr Brown mounted a strong defence of the Government's record in Sussex, where his party will be defending relatively small majorities against the advancing Tories in five seats at the next General Election.

They are Brighton Pavilion; Brighton Kemptown; Hastings and Rye; Hove and Crawley - all held by the Cons-ervatives until Labour's landslide victory in 1997.

Mr Brown, setting out why he believed the party could hold on to "those people who came to us for the first time a few years ago", said the Government had created a stable economy with better public services and was prepared to take difficult decisions.

He said: "The important thing, over the last ten years, is that people in the South have seen their living standards rising substantially.

We have seen the real terms wealth of people rising even faster than their incomes.

"We have done what no government has done for 30 years, and that is provide stability within which people can actually plan ahead, whether they are homeowners or businesses or simply families wanting to make the best of their lives with better public services founded on the stability of the economy."

Mr Brown claimed that when it came to the "long-term" decisions to back nuclear energy, boost transport infrastructure or speed up the planning system to provide new homes, opposition parties had either "walked away" or failed to match promises for investment.

He said: "I think over time, although there is controversy surrounding these decisions, people will see these are the right long-term decisions for this country."

The Prime Minister, who must call a general election no later than May 2010, refused to acknowledge the growth of socalled "southern discomfort", the notion that people in the South of England are falling out of love with Labour.

Referring to the Government's record since 1997, Mr Brown said: "The beneficiaries in the South are the families who want more stability in their lives, who want to know their standards of living will continue to rise and who want decent public services.

"We are determined to provide them and I think standards in our hospitals and our schools will continue to rise as a result of the reforms and changes and modernisations we are bringing in.

"These are the concerns we can answer for people, not just in all areas of the country but specifically those people who came to us for the first time a few years ago."

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