No bruises insists 'cheerful' Brown

The former Prime Minister said he came to terms with losing the general election "quite quickly", realising it was the "end of an era".

Speaking to the BBC in Uganda on Saturday night after delivering a speech on development, Mr Brown said the experience of being ejected from Number 10 two months ago "was not bruising".

"It's something you just have to come to terms with and you have to come to terms with quite quickly, because things in Britain move quite quickly indeed," he said.

"When I walked away from Downing Street, and we did it as a family, my two children and Sarah, I knew that was the end of a particular era and I had to accept that, and you accept it and then you move on and say, 'Look, there are other things you can do that can make a difference'."

The Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath denied that his reputation had been damaged by his time as PM, but did admit that not enough progress was made in reforming the financial system after the G20 meeting in London last year.

"I think we dealt with the global financial crisis and therefore the economy as well as we could," Mr Brown said.

"But we can see all around the world governments are suffering because there is high unemployment, there are big changes, deficits and everything else and I think the greatest failure is we haven't moved on from where we were in April 2009."

Mr Brown told the BBC he was "not interested" in honours, and was not targeting a particular job.

But international, economic, social and political co-operation would become increasingly important when attempting to tackle such issues as climate change, the global economic downturn and terrorism, he added.