Saturday 12 June 2010

Darling: Tories have misled voters on spending cuts

Alistair Darling will demand "a very big apology" from David Cameron for deliberately misleading the electorate about the state of the nation's finances if, as Darling expects, government borrowing figures released on Monday are better than forecast.


In an interview with the Guardian, the former chancellor accuses Cameron of deliberately exaggerating the scale of the problems so as to press ahead with pre-arranged plans to raise taxes and cut the size of the state. Cameron's new Office of Budget Responsibility is due to publish a fresh borrowing forecast independent of the Treasury on Monday, and Darling suspects it will be lower than his own forecast in March.

A cautious politician during his three years as chancellor, Darling is personally affronted that he has been accused by the Tories of massaging forecasts and ignoring civil service advice.  He is involved in a battle to defend his and Labour's legacy as responsible economic stewards and is taking a political gamble by raising the issue ahead of Monday.  He said: "If, when we see the borrowing figures on Monday, they turn out to be even better than I forecast in the budget, Cameron will have been found out to have misled people, and that is an extremely serious charge to lay against a prime minister. We will be due a very big apology and I'm going to get it from him."

Read the full Guardian article here.