The Conservatives have published a new dossier setting out the detail of Ed Balls' Plan B for the deficit.
This is the first comprehensive attempt to spell out what Labour mean when they say they have a 'tough' plan to reduce the deficit and what it would do to the deficit if Labour were in government.
Ed Miliband and Ed Balls' spending rules say that all frontbenchers are capable of making spending commitments. Since they set out these rules, the total net effect of Labour's frontbench statements which change the Government's current tax and spending plans would:
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Increase the deficit by £87 billion per year by 2015 compared to the Government's plans;
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Increase the National Debt by £5,000 for every man, woman and child in Britain;
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Increase debt interest payments by £16 billion per year - or £500 for every taxpayer; and
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Only reduce the deficit by a third over four years - not halve it over four years as Ed Balls has promised.
This Plan B breaks Ed Balls' own promise that Labour 'need a tough, medium-term to get our deficit down' - as it does not reduce the deficit sufficiently in the medium-term.
The analysis is the best case scenario. In reality, Ed Balls' Plan B would wreck Britain's hard-won credibility in the financial markets, causing interest rates to rocket, plunging the economy into recession and increasing the deficit even more.
This comes after revelations this weekend that Ed Balls was 'in denial about Britain's spiralling deficit from 2008' and that he 'sexed-up' Treasury forecasts, allowing Labour to increase 'spending beyond sensible levels which sometimes resulted in substantial waste'.
Baroness Warsi, Chairman of the Conservatives, said:
"Ed Balls is not being straight with voters and he's not being straight with Ed Miliband. He promised to stick to Alistair Darling's plan to get the Shadow Chancellor job. But the truth is his plan for more debt and spending would take Labour even further away from economic credibility. It's a Plan B for bankruptcy, higher taxes and economic ruin.
"Until Ed Miliband stops being weak, gets a grip on Ed Balls and comes up with a credible plan to clear up the mess they left behind, Labour can never be trusted with the economy ever again."