George Osborne has challenged Alistair Darling to clarify whether he is trying to “wriggle out of” the borrowing forecasts he made in his Pre-Budget Report six weeks ago.
Darling told the Financial Times that his PBR forecasts were "based on the evidence we had at the time" and that Britain is "far from through" the recession.
Borrowing could be almost £70bn higher than Darling predicted in his PBR, according to the most recent independent estimates – that amounts to £1,000 more debt for every person in the UK.
George, the Shadow Chancellor, described Darling’s comments as, “An admission that he sees what the country sees: Labour’s policies for the recession are not working.”
And he stressed that if Darling's PBR forecasts were wrong, Britain’s recession will be worse and our national debt even higher:
“The Government cannot escape the truth: the recession is getting worse, national debt is out of control and Labour is bankrupting Britain again.”