Is this one gamble too many for Alistair Darling?
No matter how you wrap up today's pre-budget speech, a £21 billion gamble on the UK economy has been taken and if this fails we are all in deep deep trouble. A number of tax cuts, tax increases and additional borrowing for the government budget have taken the UK deficit this year to nearly £80 billion. While this figure is bad enough it is set to rise to a record £120 billion next year!
If this fails, Alistair Darling will go down as the worst chancellor of the exchequer of all time, a label which is likely to stop with him forever. However, if his £21 billion tax gamble and hundreds of billions of pounds in additional borrowing actually work he will literally be able to name his price in the commercial world. The stakes could not be higher for the Labour Party, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown.
Whatever you think about the fact that hundreds of billions of pounds are being borrowed on the UK government credit cards, the options are few and far between as the UK economy continues to head downwards. Bravery is required but whether this is one gamble too many remains to be seen.
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