PM pledges to tackle unemployment

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Mr Brown promised to "invest through this downturn" to support jobs and create a greener and more technologically advanced Britain.

In a pre-Christmas interview with the Daily Mirror, Mr Brown promised help for people losing their jobs in the downturn to find new work. He has made the fight against unemployment his top priority for 2009, the paper reported.

The Prime Minister invited the Mirror into his Downing Street flat to see him wrap presents and sign cards with wife Sarah as their children John and Fraser played nearby.

Mr Brown said that his response to the economic crisis has been guided by his conversations with voters and businesses at weekly meetings organised around the country, where he has heard concerns about employment, access to credit and meeting bills.

He said that the Government's decision to bring forward £10 billion worth of infrastructure projects would help support jobs in the coming two years.

"School building repairs and school building alone will employ about 100,000," Mr Brown told the paper. "It is possible when you do these programmes for it to take months. But the ones we've got earmarked are ones which can take place now."

Other projects to be announced in the New Year include plans to make high-speed broadband internet available nationwide through huge investment in a fibre-optic cable network.

"We will invest through this downturn and out of this downturn to a more green and more technologically advanced Britain," said the PM.

Speaking days after the official unemployment count topped one million, Mr Brown promised not to abandon those seeking work: "A lot of people now have problems. What we can do is help them get their next job." He blamed bankers for causing the global economic crisis which has hit the UK: "I'm angry - angry we had a banking system where people neither knew the risks they were taking nor were open enough about the problems they had."