Boom and bust pledge was mistake, says Brown

Promising the end of boom and bust was a mistake, Gordon Brown admitted today - and said: "You have got to act now so that we avoid a worse problem."

Asked if his pledge, made on numerous occasions as Chancellor, was among the things he thought he had got wrong, he told BBC Radio 2: "Yes. Of course politicians make mistakes and I've got to be honest that we've made mistakes."

Related articles

• Footsie ends week on five-year low
• How India caught the world's cold
• 12% leap in UK home repossessions
• Honda to halt production for two months
• Steve Richards: Dancing on the edge of the economic precipice
• Business backs Brown and Darling
• That's the Christmas shopping done then
• Clothing retailer Mark One put into administration again
• Credit crunch proves no test for papal infallibility
• Market turmoil sends investors fleeing into Treasuries
• Citigroup attempts to reassure on stability
• CBI's Lambert says healthy credit markets key to turnaround
• Hamish McRae: Treasury's dreadful position means a long squeeze on living standards
• Slower-than-expected sales fall offers comfort to high street shops
• RBS investors agree government bailout
• 'Mail' hit by advertising downturn
• Rate of housebuilding has halved in the past year
• Costa lot: Expats forced to tighten their belts
• David Prosser: There is no end in sight for the great retail recession
• David Prosser: The real housing crisis is still ahead of us
• David Prosser: Regrets, they've had a few at RBS after all
• Credit crisis diary: A nasty case of indigestion

But the Prime Minister insisted that the economic crisis facing Britain today was different to the one he was warning about at the time.

Interviewed on The Jeremy Vine Show, he said: "The boom and bust we were talking about then was 15 per cent interest rates - and actually at one point interest rates went to 18 per cent.

"We've got a quite different set of problems now."

"We've got low inflation, low interest rates and we've got a downturn and we need confidence to be rebuilt in the economy. That's why I'm trying to get the banks to start lending again."

Speaking ahead of Monday's Pre-Budget Report, in which Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to set out tax cuts paid for by extra state borrowing, he said urgent action was required.

"This is a situation where if you don't act now, and fiscal action is what we are talking about whether it is public investment or whether it is in taxation, we will pay for it later.

"My father used to say 'a stitch in time saves nine' and I think that's an important message."

Mr Brown said he had never considered quitting 10 Downing Street, even when polls showed he was massively unpopular with the public and Labour trailed the Tories by up to 28 points.