Gordon Brown could not be forced out of office during the "coup" attempt in January because of the "grave economic situation" and his determination to stay in power, Harriet Harman has said.

In an interview to be published in tomorrow's New Statesman, Harman, the acting Labour leader, is asked why she did not tell Brown to go during a one to one meeting with him during the "coup that never was", which was led by Geoff Hoon, Patricia Hewitt and Charles Clarke and exclusively revealed first by this blog. Harman replies:

There are three overriding things there. First is that the country was still in the middle of a grave economic situation and to have a leadership crisis in the middle of government, in the middle of people worrying about whether their jobs are going to go . . .So, there's a huge economic crisis. The second thing was that, because of that, there was no general view in the party that Gordon needed to be pushed out of office. And third, Gordon was very determined to take his responsibilities as prime minister seriously and see the country through the recession.

For the full version of the wide ranging interview, see the magazine out tomorrow or Newstatesman.com in due course.