Gordon Brown emerged from his toughest week in politics yesterday insisting time and again that he was the right person to guide Britain through the economic storms ahead.

The Prime Minister, after buying time with a mini-Budget to tackle the 10p tax-rate disaster and the publication of a heavy draft programme for next year, said that his ten years at the Treasury had prepared him for the difficult times lying in wait.

Mr Brown, forced to fight for his future as never before, bombarded the media at his monthly press conference with assertions that he would not be deflected by “innuendo and gossip” from taking the right long-term decisions.

He provoked surprise by admitting that there were others who could do his job, but swiftly added that he was the person to steer the country through difficult times. “I have done it before and I can do it again,” he said.

Mr Brown, managing smiles and laughs despite a torrid week, rejected the “defeatist” idea that there was little he could do to influence rising oil prices and world commodity trends. “I actually believe there is a great deal you can do. Good economic decisions can help people through difficult times,” he said.

Yet he insisted that the £2.7 billion package announced on Tuesday was not only to help those hit by the 10p rate abolition but was also in line with action taken by other countries, including the United States, to pump money into the economy to help to ward off the recession.

At the press conference he found himself — after less than a year in the job — answering the kind of questions about his suitability that used to be thrown at John Major in his darkest years.

He replied: “I’m getting on with the job. I’m getting on with the job of building for the long term and taking sometimes unpopular decisions which are necessary so we can show the country that we are preparing this country — which has a huge and magnificent future ahead of us if we take the right long-term decisions. I am determined not to be diverted from taking these long-term decisions.”

Mr Brown accepted that there were “many people” in his Cabinet capable of being prime minister. But he added: “Of course they are capable of doing the job, but I’m doing the job . . . I was elected unopposed and I think that people understand that we are getting on with the job and I am not going to be distracted by this gossip.”

Mr Brown said that Britain’s economic challenges stemmed in large part from the credit crunch resulting from events in America and from higher oil and food prices caused by higher demand from China and India.

Britain was better placed than most countries because of its record of low debt and low unemployment over the past decade, he said.

He said he believed that action on the international level to press the oil-producing countries of Opec to increase fuel supply and cut the price of oil could ease the burden on British consumers.

And shared-equity schemes to help first-time buyers would provide support for the troubled housing market.

Mr Brown said: “These are problems that are essentially generated by the credit crunch coming out of America and inflationary pressures coming out of the rest of the world.

“These are issues that all countries have to deal with. I think because of my experience I am in a good position to deal with these issues.”

He added: “If you talk to anybody in the country, their first concern is the cost of household goods — what is in their shopping basket, what they have to pay at the petrol station. We need a Government that is capable to deal with these problems, take them and address them.

“That’s precisely what I am doing.”

Mr Brown said that he would continue to take difficult decisions, such as supporting nuclear energy, requiring incapacity benefit claimants to undergo medical tests to see if they can work and building three million homes.

“I am going to continue with the preparations for the future of this country,” he told the press conference.

“This year we have made long-term decisions about nuclear energy, climate change, transport infrastructure, planning and housing, and in almost all these decisions we were opposed by the Conservatives and the Liberals.

“These are the long-term decisions. Now we are about to take further long-term decisions, not necessarily immediately popular, but the right long-term decisions for the country.”

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