The coalition faces "political difficulty" when the real extent of spending cuts begins to hit home with the middle classes later this year, Kenneth Clarke has said.

The justice secretary's interview with the Daily Telegraph is likely to once again set him on a collision course with cabinet and party colleagues.

In contrast to the more upbeat position of the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, Clarke also said that he does not envisage "a quick rebound" for the economy, which he described as being in a calamitous state.

"One reason we're going to get some political difficulty is that [while] the public knows we've got to do something about it, I don't think middle England has quite taken on board the scale of the problem," he told the Telegraph.

"That will emerge as the cuts start coming home this year.

"We've got to get on with it [but] it's going to be very difficult. If someone says it's not as bad as all that, I say [they] just don't realise the calamitous position we are in."

Clarke's downbeat assessment compares starkly with Osborne's utterances, and those of the Treasury, which has maintained that the return to growth will be swift despite figures last month showing that the economy had contracted in the last quarter of 2010.

"We're in for a long haul to get back to normality," said the veteran Tory.

"There are so many uncertainties internationally, and I do not see a quick rebound."

Other comments in the same interview risk re-igniting tensions with No 10 over plans to give prisoners the vote.

Clarke insisted it is inevitable that prisoners will get the vote, and gave his support to a plan that will see the enfranchisement of approximately 30,000 inmates, about a third of the prison population. He said a four-year cut-off point was more realistic than Downing Street's hopes of limiting the franchise to those serving one-year sentences.