The government must admit failure

In a cracking piece in today’s copy of The Independent, McRae takes a stab at predicting the future of Britain.

Acknowledging that it will be down to the next government to re-establish fiscal discipline, he says: "For a decade at least, maybe a generation, government spending will be constrained and taxes will remain higher than they are now… This is, for Gordon Brown in particular, a catastrophe. Everything he stood for has been swept away."

Reporting on public figures, McRae says the UK will go up from a national debt of 40 per cent of GDP to one of between 80 and 100 per cent. The price of tackling the recession will double national debt. "That can never happen again," he says. "When the next recession comes, in say 2018, we will still be paying off the cost of the present one."

And what of the future? "We will not see the way forward today of course, for that path will have to be chartered by the next government. But we are at some sort of turning point, the point where we have as a country to admit failure."

Will Chancellor Alistair Darling admit failure in today’s Budget? Stay tuned as we keep you posted on all the key announcements.

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