Election last thing on my mind - PM

The Government is preparing a fresh bid to push the banks into resuming lending amid figures showing mortgage lending slumping to a new low. Mr Brown played down suggestions that it could include another injection of public cash into financial institutions and urged voters to judge his policies by long-term effects.

Speaking on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, he said: "I do not think you can judge the success of recapitalisation by what happened in one month; you have got to judge it as a necessary means by which, by saving the banks - and saving is the right word - we restore the ability to fund businesses and mortgages. If we had not acted that weekend and then the rest of the world acted, you would have had a banking collapse, you would have lost major institutions."

He went on: "From January 1 we have the small business scheme, we have the export credit scheme, we've got the ability of companies to defer their payments to the Inland Revenue. We've got other means by which we will try to get liquidity, cash into the system."

Asked if that could include more public cash for the banks, he said: "I do not think that's the first thing anyone would think about at the moment. The first thing we are thinking about is how we can help the flow of money to businesses; how we can get the banks doing what they said they would do after the recapitalisation - that is, maintaining the level of funding for small businesses and mortgages that happened in 2007."

The Prime Minister, who said that up to 100,000 jobs could be created through Government projects being brought forward, also pointed out that only a small fraction of an £18 billion boost for the economy had yet been spent. "If we have spent £1 billion of a total of £18 billion to be spent, some on public works, some on keeping people in their jobs, some on environmental and green projects, some on helping more people go to university and college... we have just started. You can't judge a success or a failure by the first few weeks, you've got to judge it over the next few months."

Asked to rule out a 2009 General Election, the PM said it was "the last thing on my mind" - adding, when pressed: "I've got no plans for that."

Mr Brown hailed the jobs initiative as he sought to counter fears that unemployment could soar beyond three million this year as the recession bites. He believes speeding up school, transport, technology and environmental projects will help offset the effects - and is discussing other job protection measures with industry.

The PM, who will spend much of this week touring the country in advance of a Downing Street "jobs summit" next Monday, also defended his handling of the economic crisis. "I want to show how we will be able to, through public investments and public works, create probably 100,000 additional jobs over the next period of time in our capital investment programme - schools, hospitals, environmental work and infrastructure, transport," Mr Brown told The Observer.

But the Tories accused the Prime Minister of producing headline-grabbing figures out of the air with little evidence to back them - and questioned why other major projects were being slowed down. Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said: "Frankly, I'm extremely sceptical. Only last month he delayed his biggest public project - the new aircraft carriers - because the Government has run out of money. This is a Government that has got Britain into a major debt crisis and its solutions to the problems just aren't working."