British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a slip of the tongue on Wednesday when suggesting the world is in the midst of a depression, his spokeswoman said.
During rowdy exchanges in the weekly prime minister’s questions at parliament, Brown told lawmakers that “we should agree, as a world, on a monetary and fiscal stimulus that will take the world out of depression.”
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the slip “was not deliberate and is not what he thinks.” She spoke on condition of anonymity per government policy.
Although there is no standard definition of what a depression is, most economists think that a recession — a normal downturn in the business cycle — becomes a depression when output contracts over a long period of time and by more than 10 percent.
George Osborne, the opposition Conservative Party’s spokesman for economic matters, swiftly demanded that Brown explain himself.
“The prime minister must personally and urgently clarify whether his statement today that the world is in ‘depression’ was a slip of the tongue, or whether he knows something that we don’t know,” Osborne said outside parliament. “Prime ministers in particular need to be very careful about their use of language to ensure they don’t undermine confidence.”
Last week, Brown admitted the country was facing a “deep recession.”
Official statistics have already shown that Britain is confronting its worst recession since 1980, with the economy shrinking 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Forecasters such as the IMF have also indicated that Britain would likely contract more than any other leading industrialized country this year.
It was the second time Brown has apparently stumbled during questions in the lower chamber in the past few months.
In December, he drew howls of laughter from the opposition benches when he accidentally said he had saved the world during questions about the global crisis.
“The first point of recapitalization was to save banks that would otherwise have collapsed,” he said before adding: “And we not only saved the world, er, saved the banks.”
Brown has consistently called for concerted and coordinated global fiscal stimulus packages to stop the current financial crisis from worsening, noting that the British economy will only improve if all major countries take similar measures.
Brown, who trails the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls and must call a general election by the middle of next year, will host a Group of 20 summit on April 2 on the global economic crisis.
He remained voters’ favorite to lead Britain during the country’s economic crisis, but his party continues to trail the opposition Conservatives, a poll for Channel 4 News showed on Wednesday.
The YouGov survey found 34 percent of those asked agreed that Brown was the better premier for an economic downturn, compared with 28 percent backing Conservative leader David Cameron.
However, only 36 percent said they would vote for Brown’s Labour government if an election were held now, compared with 43 percent supporting the Conservatives and 13 percent plumping for the opposition Liberal Democrats.
That would be enough to reverse Labour’s 63 seat working majority in parliament and put the Conservatives into government after more than a decade out of power.
The poll questioned 2,000 voters between Jan. 30 and Tuesday in 60 marginal constituencies the Conservatives must win to return to office.
Recent polls have shown the Conservatives regaining their lead over Labour after the gap between the two narrowed late last year as voters supported Brown’s handling of the banking crisis.
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