|PIC1|Prime Minister Gordon Brown has invited Christians to work alongside the Government in building a better society.

In a video released this week, Mr Brown said the public square was not a marketplace that could be stripped of values.

“I don’t subscribe to the view that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life, that you can somehow ask people to leave their faith at the door when they enter a town hall or a Commons chamber,” he said.

“Churches and the Christian charities have been Britain’s conscience on causes from debt cancellation to child poverty, to the good environmental stewardship of the earth, and each of these great recent causes is rooted in the idea that we are each other’s brother and sister’s keeper.”

He noted that the financial crisis of the last 18 months had caused him to draw on the lesson of the Good Samaritan, not to pass by those in need.

“The lessons of the Gospels need not be kept separate from political life,” he said. “If Christians engage in politics then all of us together can build a society where wealth helps more than the wealthy, good fortune serves more than the fortunate, and riches enrich not just some of us but all.”

As the main political parties launched their General Election campaigns this week, Mr Brown said he would “not stop fighting” to secure a victory for the Labour Party.

"When you're behind in the polls you've got to regard yourselves as the fighter. Everything I've ever won in my life, I've had to fight for," he told the BBC. "We, the Labour Party, will fight every inch of the way."

Mr Brown said the recession was a “defining issue” of the election and spoke of an age of aspiration, opportunity and prosperity, while warning of an “age of austerity” if people voted the Conservative Party to power.

Conservative leader David Cameron launched his campaign on Sunday with a pledge to reform the NHS, saying that Britain “cannot go on for another five years with Gordon Brown”.

According to a new poll for The Daily Telegraph, the Conservative Party is leading on 40 per cent, followed by the Labour Party on 30 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 17 per cent.

The Prime Minister has not yet set a date for the General Election, which must be held before June.