Prime Minister Gordon Brown will signal on Monday there will be no giveaways in a government spending review this month as speculation grows that he will soon call a snap general election.

The government will raise depositors' protection on their savings to 35,000 pounds, Chancellor Alistair Darling said on Monday, after the country suffered its first bank run in more than a century last month.

Government ministers have held firm in their refusal to offer a referendum on the EU reform treaty, as Conservatives stepped up the pressure by demanding a national televised debate.

Gordon Brown has delivered his personal manifesto to Labour's annual conference - but kept the country guessing about when he would call an election. In a sometimes emotional address, the premier promised action on gun crime, under-age and binge drinking and superbugs in the NHS.

The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom, organised in its present form in 1906. The Labour Party began, and for much of its history remained, dependent on the support of the British trade unions.

Gordon Brown, who became Britain's Prime Minister in June 2007, took over from Tony Blair, the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister. Before Brown inherited Downing Street, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1997 and 2007.

If you had any doubts about how Gordon Brown wants to be perceived by the voting public, his first party conference speech as leader should have made it crystal clear – he wants to be seen as a no nonsense politician.

A geographical look Gordon Brown's life, including growing up in Kirkcaldy, selling programmes at Raith Rovers' stadium and university in Edinburgh.

Do you believe anything that MPs tell you or do you trust them as far as you could throw them? Have your say on the MSN message boards.

MSN examines the Conservative Party - from its historic roots to David Cameron's rousing speech, via the Thatcher era - in this special report.