GORDON Brown has booked a TV broadcast for next week, in the clearest sign yet that he may be planning a November election.

A senior BBC source at the Tory conference in Blackpool revealed that Labour had pencilled in a party political broadcast for next Tuesday evening.

The revelation will heighten speculation that the Prime Minister plans to call a General Election that day, before explaining his reasons to the nation, on TV, a few hours later.

A visit to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday would allow Mr Brown to fulfill his pledge to make a Commons statement about Iraq a day earlier, when MPs return to Westminster.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce he is pulling 2,000 troops out of Iraq, taking the sting out of the issue that poisoned Tony Blair's premiership.

The timetable may also give Chancellor Alistair Darling space to unveil the promised comprehensive spending review, setting out spending plans for the next three years.

That would allow Labour to trumpet its commitment to further improving public services, after a week in which the Conservatives have focused on tax cuts.

If an election is called next Tuesday, it is likely to be held on November 1, which is 17 working days later - the minimum period allowed.

Mr Brown is under pressure from younger Cabinet colleagues to capitalise on his healthy lead in the opinion polls, instead of waiting until next May or beyond.

However, the Prime Minister is thought to be concerned that Labour's lead is smaller in key marginal seats, where the Tories have already spent huge sums.

He is expected to make a decision at the end of this week, after studying whether the Tory conference has given David Cameron's party a desperately-needed bounce.

A BBC spokesman declined to confim next week's broadcast, saying: "You will need to contact Labour about their party political broadcasts."

Yesterday, Mr Cameron said he now believed the chance of a November election were now "more than 50-50".

Meanwhile, the Tories turned up the heat on Mr Brown yesterday, branding him a liar about the scale of youth unemployment in the region.

The ferocious attack at the Blackpool conference follows rising Conservative alarm that opinion polls show Mr Brown is far more trusted than Tory leader David Cameron.

Yet, the Conservatives argued, the former Chancellor was to blame for "crippling" the pensions system and for youth unemployment higher than ten years ago.

The party has highlighted the number of 16 to 18-year-olds not in education, employment and training - or NEETs - which has not fallen under Labour.

Latest figures show there were 10,240 NEETs across the North-East at the end of last year and a further 800 in North Yorkshire.

The blackspots include County Durham (900), Sunderland (580), Middlesbrough (450) and Redcar and Cleveland (280).

Chris Grayling, the Tory work and pensions spokesman, told the conference that, back in July, the Government claimed it had solved the problem of jobless youths.

And he said: "There is only one way of describing that claim - it was a lie. Gordon Brown's New Deal was supposed to solve youth unemployment. Billions have been spent. And the result? There are now more 16 to 24-year-olds unemployed in Britain than there were ten years ago."

He urged delegates: "Remember the spin, remember the cronies, remember the broken promises, remember the lies."