Chancellor Alistair Darling warned today that “tough choices” lie ahead on public spending, but said a return to growth is the best way to tackle the UK’s rising debt mountain.
He also attacked Conservative plans to slash the deficit as showing a “poverty of aspiration” and “wallowing in an age of austerity”.
Official figures yesterday showed public borrowing at a record £77.3bn for the first six months of the financial year – and it is set to hit £175bn for the year as a whole.
But the Chancellor said: “To make the wrong choices, to refuse to invest, will simply mean that the economy gets smaller, we all get poorer, and even greater and deeper cuts are needed.
“We have seen this before – the savage cuts of the 1980s meant whole swathes of our economy disappeared.”
