LONDON – Prime Minister Gordon Brown has publicly set a national election for May 6 — a historic vote considered one of Britain’s least predictable in decades.

Brown made the announcement after meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, who agreed to dissolve Parliament to clear the way for the election.

He says: “The queen has kindly agreed to the dissolution of Parliament, and the general election will take place on May 6.”

Brown was backed by members of his Cabinet as he spoke.

Brown faces an uphill election battle against Conservative Party leader David Cameron, who enjoys a lead in opinion polls. The Labour Party has been in power since Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.

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LONDON – Britain’s first national election in five years will take place on May 6, Prime Minister Gordon Brown planned to announce Tuesday, launching a monthlong campaign that could end in his ouster and the return of the opposition Conservative Party to power for the first time in 13 years.

After months of anticipation over the election date, Brown will finally play his hand, traveling to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth II for permission to dissolve Parliament and call the first national vote since 2005.

A Labour Party official, who requested anonymity to discuss the announcement in advance, confirmed Brown would announce a May 6 poll on Tuesday, after a morning meeting of his Cabinet and an audience with the queen.

For Brown, appreciated by some but widely unloved, election day could end a three-year tenure as prime minister marked by the near-collapse of the British economy and beset by division within his party.

Defeat would bring to a close a British political era begun with Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 election victory, which returned the Labour Party to office and brought an unprecedented three successive electoral triumphs for the center-left organization. Britain’s Conservatives — the party of Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill — hope to win a national election for the first time since 1992.

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