Darling defends spending cuts delay
Alistair Darling has defended his decision to delay billions of pounds in public spending cuts until after the general election.
The Chancellor insisted he wanted to establish growth before trying to halve the deficit over the next four years in an "orderly way" that would not threaten the recovery.
His strategy included a pay squeeze for millions of public sector workers and a national insurance hike.
Mr Darling told GMTV: "Once we get recovery established then of course as a country we've got to reduce our borrowing and live within our means.
"Of course there are some people who say we should go faster and further ... I don't think that would have been right. I think it's important that we continue to get ourselves through one of the steepest downturns we've ever seen."
But he conceded "some difficult decisions" will have to be made to bring down the country's £178 billion annual deficit.
"We're not out of recession yet, there's a lot of uncertainty around," he said .
He added he was confident the country was coming through the recession and that it would start to see growth at the turn of the year, but he said budgets would only be allocated to departments only once growth was established.
On Wednesday, Mr Darling was forced to concede that the recession in Britain was even deeper than previously thought, with the economy shrinking by 4.75% this year compared with the 3.5% he forecast in the Budget in April.
He was accused by the opposition parties of having "ducked" the most difficult decisions. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne accused the Government of "building up debts that will cripple this country". He told GMTV: "This country has enormous debts. The Government has left an enormous economic mess."
