Brown seen delaying poll until at least 2009

By Adrian Croft - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - Mounting problems facing Prime Minister Gordon Brown, ranging from a weakening economy to a police investigation into party funding, virtually ensure he will put off an election until at least 2009, analysts say.

Cabinet minister Peter Hain quit on Thursday after electoral authorities referred to the police his late declaration of 100,000 pounds of campaign funding.

The resignation forced Brown into the first reshuffle of his seven-month-old government.

The party funding scandal, coupled with a bank crisis, a darkening economic outlook and a series of government blunders, has sent Brown's popularity plunging.

With his Labour Party trailing the Conservatives by up to 10 points, political analysts believe Brown will try to batten down the hatches during this year's expected economic slowdown.

He will hope the economy will improve enough for him to regain the political initiative and win a fourth consecutive election for Labour in 2009 or 2010, the latest date he can go to the polls.

"The economic situation seems continuously to be deteriorating ... It's going to be a very difficult year for him (Brown)," Warwick University politics professor Wyn Grant said.

"The question is whether he can pull out of it at the end of the year looking to an election in June 2009, or even later," he added.