Gordon Brown will today set out his political values in a highly personalised speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 20 years after Margaret Thatcher sparked controversy with her "Sermon on the Mound".

Gordon Brown will today set out his political values in a highly personalised speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 20 years after Margaret Thatcher sparked controversy with her "Sermon on the Mound".

As exclusively revealed by The Herald yesterday, the Prime Minister will deliver a keynote address at the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh when he is expected to touch on the subjects of poverty, family and the relationship between the individual and the state.

While a son of the manse and committed Christian, Mr Brown rarely talks about his religious beliefs.

On May 21, 1988, his Conservative predecessor spoke about wealth creation and individual responsibility. At the time, her views were attacked by critics as an illustration of the divisive nature of Thatcherite economics.

In 1999, Mr Brown as the Chancellor used a General Assembly speech to outline his philosophy of international debt reduction with a speech entitled The Economics of Hope. Then, he said there was an idea of a "community bound together as citizens with shared needs, mutual responsibilities and linked destinies" running like "a golden thread through Scottish history".

The PM's spokesman said that nothing should be read into the fact that the PM's speech comes almost exactly 20 years to the day after Baroness Thatcher's contentious speech.

Asked if Mr Brown, like Lady Thatcher, would use the occasion to discuss his own moral beliefs, the spokesman said: "When speaking to a Church of Scotland audience, it would be surprising if he didn't talk about his own upbringing but it has not been the Prime Minister's habit to talk about his own individual religious views."