Brown rejected suggestions that a surprise 2.7 billion pound tax cut package announced earlier week flouted rules set when he was finance minister to keep a tight rein on government finances by restricting borrowing to fund investment.

"I don’t accept that," he said. "We have not broken the rule. The rule is over the economic cycle. You don’t look at each individual budget," he said.

"What are these rules there for? To help us in difficult times, when you are facing a world downturn, to make the right decisions for the economy."

"We have difficult times and we need the flexibility to enable us to move the economy forward," Brown said.

BEST PERSON FOR BRITAIN

Brown said the problems Britain faced were linked to high commodity prices and difficulties in the property sector and his international experience meant he was best placed to shepherd the economy through these times.

He said the government would take more measures in the future to help the housing market and work with other countries to put pressure on OPEC to boost oil production.

"Few people deny that we’ve had a good economy over the last 11 years," he said. "The reason it is going wrong is international factors that we are going to deal with and I am probably best placed to deal with these issues."

"Of course there’s many people that can take over but I think I can help steer this economy through difficult times and make sure that we do the best by Britain in what are difficult world circumstances."

As chancellor, Brown built a respected international profile by pushing rich countries to lift the debt burden on poor nations, fighting to end poverty and to tear down trade barriers blamed for hurting development.

(Additional reporting by Christina Fincher, editing by Chris Pizzey)