May 16, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1429

LONDON, May 15: Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that Britain would do what it could to help Pakistan “as we want a stable government in Islamabad”.

Speaking at his monthly Downing Street press conference here on Thursday, Mr Brown referred to Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s visit to Pakistan last month and his meetings with Pakistan’s top leadership here in London last week to “discuss various issues”.

“The elections were not conclusive so therefore a coalition is necessary,” he added.

Answering questions on the state of the economy in the UK and his handling of it, the prime minister blamed “international factors” for rising oil and food prices and housing market problems and said he was taking the right action to deal with them.

He said the world economy had been caught between the US recession and the rising inflation in the emerging markets like China, “therefore the worldwide trouble on the economic front”.

He attributed the widening gap between oil supply and its demand for the escalating oil prices with speculation also playing a significant role. He, therefore, thought supply should be increased commensurate with demand to bring the prices down to reasonable levels.

The prime minister said he had a record of handling the economy competently. “I feel that I am in the right position to be able to sort out the problems that we have now,” he said.

He held out the assurance that his government would not hesitate to take whatever action was necessary to take the British economy through difficult times.

He rejected as “defeatist” a suggestion there was little he could do to influence rising oil prices and other global trends.

He insisted the tax cuts were not a short-term “fix” to get him out of political trouble, as other countries were also pumping money into their economies to ward off recession.

He also denied he had broken his own financial rules on borrowing only for investment, saying that applied to the entire economic cycle.