Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke claims that the UK’s economic recovery could take years.

He told the BBC that 2009 is likely to be a “dreadful” year, and that if the Tories win the next election, they faced a “difficult” task.

He also said that Labour are wasting billions on failed policies and markets were “losing confidence” in Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

Mr Clarke also says he doesn’t expect the introduction of the euro in the UK to become a political issue for a few years now.

Mr Clarke returned to the Conservative frontbench recently after 10 years on the backbench, and has been unsatisfied with the Tory leadership over Europe for years.

He said that labour had failed to get to grips with the financial crisis, resulting in a series of “panic-stricken” measures to try and support the banking system, and therefore he was “gloomy” about the economic prospects for this year.

He added that: “we realised some money had to go in but the money has been pumped in ineffectually and it hasn’t worked.
“So far the crisis is deepening and we haven’t achieved the one key objective to get the banking system working normally again.
“The Conservatives are going to find themselves presiding over a difficult recovery which will probably take a few years when we get in.”

Mr Clarke added that he found the collapse of the pound sterling worrying, but that talk of financial “calamity” with the prospect of the UK having to go cap in and to the IMF for emergency financial support was unrealistic.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party has said that there is a real risk of the UK potentially running out of money and having to seek external support.

Describing the euro, the conservatives are said to have a settled policy on Europe which Mr Clarke described as “moderate”, adding that the idea of Britain’s entry into the euro was unlikely to be an issue again in his “political lifetime”.

Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats has said there was a “crisis of confidence in Britain PLC”.

He also claimed that only the Liberal Democrats could make the radical changes that needed making in order to address the problems of the economic model that has, over the last 20 years, been swept away.

He said that: “the future is going to look dramatically different than the past in terms of how we run our economy.”

Culture Secretary for Labour, Andy Burnham, said that opposing politicians and commentators should be careful of language and ensure they don’t talk down the economy.