Gordon Brown is truly having a rough time. Rebuffed by the United States, International Monetary Fund and others for floating the idea of a tax on financial transactions at this weekend's G20 meeting, he has now got short shrift from the Cayman Islands.

McKeeva Bush, the veteran Caymanian politican who is now premier of the British Overseas Territory, popped in to the Reuters London headquarters for a chat this week. His main concern was to explain plans for making the islands an easier place for financial services personnel to live in. He would like some of those 8,000 hedge nearly 10,000 funds that are registered there to be more than just brass plaques. But, when asked, he also had time to dismiss the idea of a transaction tax out of hand.

"That's an old hat. I have been hearing about it for 25 years. It's just not practicable. It will not work."

And just in case the point was missed:

"We have looked at it and we do not think this is something that would work."

Bush would not be drawn on the idea that a tax on transactions could, metaphorically speaking, sink his Caribbean island homeland under the waves. But Paul Byles, a government financial services consultant who accompanied the premier, did touch on the liquid nature of the issue:

"Tax flows, and they will move somewhere else."

Do you have a question you would like to ask Chancellor Alistair Darling? Now is your chance.

At 1:30pm British time on Wednesday, October 21, Reuters is hosting an exclusive Web 2.0 interview with Darling and we want you to send us your questions to put to the top man from the Treasury.

From the crippling global recession to the debate over bankers' bonuses, it has been a tumultuous year at Number 11 Downing Street. You may want to quiz the Chancellor on one of these topics, ask him about the government's plans to prevent another downturn or how Labour plan to defy the polls and win the upcoming general election.

During the interview we will put as many of your questions as possible to the Chancellor and will be running a liveblog of the event, much like we did during this social media interview with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Leave your question in the comments box below or via Twitter (using #askdarling) and join us on Wednesday for our Web 2.0 interview with the Chancellor.

Opposition leader David Cameron has delivered his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

Cameron told delegates there would be “painful” cuts in public spending, promised to send more troops to Afghanistan and stressed the importance of confronting “Labour’s debt crisis.” He also pledged to modernise the pension system, “break the cycle of welfare dependency” and cut back on bureaucracy to make life easier for entrepreneurs.

Cameron’s speech brings conference season to an end. Leaders of the three main parties — Cameron, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats — have all laid out their plans for Britain ahead of a general election due by June 2010.

The ‘word clouds’ below have been generated using the complete texts from each of the leaders’ keynote conference speeches, in the order they were given. At first glance there are some striking similarities and fascinating overlaps — but we will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

How did you think each of the leaders performed? Who did you find the most convincing? Is David Cameron ready to lead the country?

Keywords from Nick Clegg’s speech:

Keywords from Gordon Brown’s speech:

Keywords from David Cameron’s speech:

The Sun trumpeted “It’s the Sun Wot Won It” after the Conservatives won the 1992 general election following the newspaper’s polling day headline “If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”.

Five years later, Britain’s top-selling daily newspaper switched sides and backed Tony Blair and Labour at the next general election, remaining loyal to the centre-left party at the 2001 and 2005 elections.

But the tabloid has now flipped its allegiances and plans to support the Tories and David Cameron proclaiming on its front page on Wednesday that “Labour’s Lost it”.

“The Sun believes — and prays — that the Conservative leadership can put the great back into Great Britain,” wrote the paper, dedicating five pages to explain its decision, even moving its traditional page-three topless girl back to page seven.

With Brown even lagging the Liberal Democrats in the latest opinion polls, the Sun’s thumbs-down was another kick in the teeth for the beleaguered Prime Minister, just a day after he delivered a keynote speech to the Labour Party conference.

In a round of interviews on Wednesday, Brown put a brave face on the Sun’s thumbs-down, insisting: “The British people will decide the election, not a newspaper”.

The Sun is read by nearly three million people, but in an age where people increasingly get their news from rolling television news programmes and the Internet, is the tabloid’s decision a fatal blow for Gordon Brown’s political chances in next year’s general election?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to clean up politics, get tough on crime in his keynote speech to the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton. He also pledged to address the bonus culture that many blame for the financial crisis.

The ‘Word Cloud’ below (click the image for a larger view), produced by Wordle, shows the words he used most frequently.

The speech was an attempt to rouse his beleaguered party and win back the middle-class voters who flocked to Labour under Tony Blair. The latest opinion poll from Ipsos Mori put Labour down in third place for the first time since 1982.

Reuters Chief Correspondent Keith Weir, who is live blogging the Labour conference, said the key themes that struck him were Brown’s focus on families, health, crime and middle or mainstream issues.

What did you think of Gordon Brown’s speech? Have your views on him changed? Do you think he can still win a general election next year?

As a conference first-timer, I was curious to know what goes on off stage in the conference centre — where the television cameras seldom go.

The lobby area at the Brighton Conference venue is packed with stalls for various campaign groups — everyone from the heavyweights of the Nuclear Industry Association to the Paul Daisley Trust, touchingly run by the widow of a Labour MP who died of colorectal cancer in 2003.

There are plenty of sweets on offer and the canvas bag with slogan is the favourite giveaway.

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association even allow visitors to try out on Wii Fit’s ski jump. For the record, your correspondent cleared 100 metres before crashing out on his second attempt — way off the conference record marked on the whiteboard.

The most arresting sight is a lollipop lady made of ice — she is slowly melting away in the conference heat. The Unison Union warns that public services would suffer a similar fate if political parties cut public spending.

My Dad is always telling me about the good old days.

Born in Liverpool — a stone’s throw from the football ground Anfield — he grew up in a house that had an outside toilet and was freezing cold. His mother regularly bought food on tick and his idea of a good day out was a trip to New Brighton beach with a banana sandwich to eat for lunch. A Catholic, he suffered sectarian abuse on his way to school, where he was regularly beaten by the teachers. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Listening to our politicians - be they from the left or right - things haven’t got much better. By the sound of it, you’d have thought we were living in some post apocalyptic Terminator-like nightmare, where courts do little else but dish out Asbos — anti-social behaviour orders — to our feckless youth.

The suicide of Fiona Pilkington, 38, who killed herself and her daughter after years of abuse on their estate has brought Britain’s social problems sharply into focus.

“We will not stand by and see the lives of the lawful majority disrupted by the behaviour of the lawless minority,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to tell the Labour party conference on Tuesday.

“Because the decent, hard working majority are getting ever more angry - rightly so - with the minority who who will talk about their rights but never accept their responsibilities.”

At the other of the spectrum is the financial sector — swollen beyond its socially useful size, according to Lord Adair Turner, Chairman of the Financial Services Authority – fiddling while Rome burns.

Is Britain’s society broken and if so what steps need to taken to fix it?

There haven’t been many highlights from the podium at this year’s Labour party conference so far, but business minister Peter Mandelson pulled the cat out of the bag.
A rip-snorting rouser of a speech on Monday — full of gags and inspirational lines — has energised the party faithful and left commentators drooling.
It was just what Labour needed given all the negativity around the party at the moment.
Way behind in the polls, scrambling for policies that will capture the public mood and seemingly doomed to defeat at the next election to the opposition Conservatives, a week-long conference in sunny Brighton could easily turn into a painfully long few days.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown takes to the stage on Tuesday and must follow Mandelson’s lead if he is to convince the doubters in his own party and beyond that he has what it takes to reverse Labour’s fortunes.
Brown is not known for his imaginative speeches but he needs to find one now.
He did it last year — when plotters in his party wanted him out.
Can he do it again?

The Labour Party conference in Brighton is crucial if the party is to start a revival that could give it a fourth successive term in office. As well as covering Gordon Brown’s big set piece on Tuesday, our team of three reporters will try to gauge party morale and give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes beside the seaside.

You can follow our Twitter and video updates via our live blog, which will appear in the box below.

The Prime Minister is on the move — and I will be following close behind.

I’m Sumeet Desai, Senior Reuters economics correspondent and over the next couple of weeks I will be with Gordon Brown as he travels to New York to the United Nations general assembly and then on to Pittsburgh for the eagerly anticipated G20 summit.

Then it is back to Britain — we will be at the seaside in Brighton for the Labour Party’s annual conference.

I will be live blogging throughout my journey, sending regular news and thoughts via my Twitter feed, which will appear in the box below, and will also post video updates from my travels with Gordon.