Gordon Brown put Britain and the Labour Party on the alert for a general election next year as he was crowned as Tony Blair’s successor yesterday.

In his first speech as party leader, he promised to heed and lead the call for change. He also used his coronation speech to announce the appointment of an election co-ordinator in a clear signal that he would like to go to the country next year.

After Harriet Harman was elected as his deputy leader by the narrowest of margins, Mr Brown immediately showed his ruthless streak by making her party chairman but not deputy prime minister, despite earlier indications that he would give his elected deputy that job.

Mr Brown has picked Douglas Alexander, a close ally and currently the Transport Secretary, for the election role “so that we are ready not just to fight but win a general election . . . whenever the prime minister decides to call it”.

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The Northern Rock disaster has torn away any remaining credibility the Prime Minister had

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His aides swiftly ruled out a snap election this autumn but it appears likely that, if Mr Brown believes that he can win an election within the next 12 months, he will try to secure his own mandate from voters.

Mr Brown became leader at an emotional conference in Manchester, with Mr Blair handing over to him in a brief speech saying that he had every quality to be a “great prime minister”.

Ms Harman pipped Alan Johnson by just 50.4 per cent to 49.6 per cent in the fifth round of voting after the other four contenders’ second preference votes were reallocated. The Education Secretary finished ahead in both the MPs’ and union sections of the electoral college but was defeated because Ms Harman did markedly better in the membership section. She had irritated Mr Brown by diverging from government policy during the campaign. But, as party chairman, she will be back in the Cabinet for the first time since 1998 and expected to accept collective responsibility.

Mr Brown laid down the battle lines for the election and tried to present himself, rather than David Cameron, the Conservative leader, as the candidate of change. “When I take office on Wednesday, I will, as our party has always done, heed and lead the call for change,” he said.

For young people wanting to take the first step on the housing ladder, for families wanting their children to go to university, for people wanting affordable child care, for families and for pensioners wanting an NHS there when they need it,

Labour “would meet the challenge of change”, he said.

He accepted worries over affordable housing, promising that his housing minister would attend Cabinet, and said that a “new settlement” for the NHS and more spending on schools would be his priorities.

Mr Brown’s speech had a touch of old-style revivalism about it, as he declared that Labour must have not only policies but also a soul. But it was clearly an attempt to reach beyond his party to the country by showing that he understood the concerns of ordinary people after his months spent travelling the nation to prepare for the job.

Telling the country that he was a “conviction politician”, he said that everything he did came from the values with which he grew up – duty, honesty, hard work, family and respect for others. He was proud of the health service, “but I know also from everything I have heard round the country that we need to do better – and the NHS will be my immediate priority”.

Patients should get treatment at hours that suited them, there should be action to improve hygiene in hospitals, en-suring that patients were treated with dignity and a wider range of services, with more power in the hands of patients and staff.

He promised a new constitutional settlement for Britain – Jack Straw is expected to become the new justice secretary and to take charge of Mr Brown’s constitutional reforms – which would involve government giving more power to Parliament, which in turn would be handed down to the people. He promised that parliament would vote “on all the major issues of our time, including peace and war”.

He added: “Don’t let anyone tell you the choice at the next election will be change with other parties and no change with Labour.”

For the party, Mr Brown promised to strengthen the policy-making process, and to hold a one-member one-vote ballot on the programme that will be put to the country.

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