UK RECOVERY WILL BE FEEBLE - CLARKE

The former Chancellor's comments came after Gordon Brown pledged to return the economy to growth by the end of the year.

In a podcast message, the Prime Minister vowed to end the longest recession since records began.

After shock figures on Friday which showed the economy shrank by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009, Mr Brown insisted the battle to stop the downturn becoming a second Great Depression was being won and to warn that the Conservatives' "suicidal" plans to cut spending would put recovery at risk.

In his podcast, released on the 10 Downing Street website and YouTube, Mr Brown warned against the swift reductions in public spending promised by the Tories to get state debt under control.

"Although there are signs that confidence is beginning to return in some areas, we need to be cautious," he said. "Now, more than ever, is the time for steady and clear policies. That is why it would be suicidal to put recovery at risk by suddenly cutting off the funding and investment that is supporting young people, families and businesses through the most challenging times in a generation."

He added: "My pledge to you is to make reform of the financial sector a reality and to see Britain's economy return to growth by the turn of the year."

But Mr Clarke said he believed that Britain's route to recovery would be "L-shaped" - suggesting a lengthy period of stagnation and minimal growth - rather than the V-shaped swift return to healthy growth that Mr Brown is hoping for or the W-shaped "double dip" recession that some economists fear.

"I think sooner or later we are going to start getting a very feeble recovery but it is going to be feeble and fragile," said the shadow business secretary. The next Parliament is going to be dominated by trying to strengthen it and get it back to something like normality and a normal rate of growth.

"We are worse affected than pretty well anywhere else in the western world for some perfectly practical reasons, part of which is the colossal scale of the public debt and the fact that we were the only ones to get into a fiscal crisis before the credit crunch even started."