Brown to save economy
Gordon Brown is the still man to get the British economy back on course, the prime minister claimed today.
"There are many people who could take over but I think I can steer this economy through difficult times," the bruised and battered PM told the BBC.
"I have done it before and I can do it again," he added ahead of today's monthly media press conference.
Brown is convinced that action being taken is the right way to tackle soaring oil and food prices and housing market problems, which he blamed on "international factors".
It's been another bad week for the Labour leader following Tuesday's decision to cough up £2.7bn in compensation to those hit by the government's decision to scrap the 10p tax band.
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The gloom continued yesterday when Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned that inflation could surge way past the government's upper limit of 3%.
He said the near-term outlook for inflation has "deteriorated markedly" over the past three months and "for the time being at least, the nice decade is behind us."
Brown told interviewer John Humphrys: "I have had experience in the last 11 years of building a strong economy. I think few people would deny that we have had a good economy over the last 11 years."
"The reason it's going wrong are international factors that we are going to deal with and I am probably best placed to deal with these issues because of what I know about dealing with other countries on oil and other issues and we are going to keep going."
