Darling shatters Labour's spending myth

So now we have the truth.

Alastair Darling, in an interview with Faisal Islam for Channel 4 News, has finally spoken the words that Brown and Balls dared not.

Current and capital spending will increase between now and 2012.

So what's new?

All of that increased spending will take place this year.

The Chancellor did not actually use the words spending will fall from next year. He didn't need to. He simply said that Labour's spending plans for the next three years had been brought forward to the current year.

Now Labour's spending plans actually make some sense. At least, they do if you're a Labour Chancellor. Extra spending in time of recession and all that.

But the Brown and Balls story that spending will continue to rise in real terms year on year is revealed as total fantasy. Lewis Caroll might approve of such inversion of fact: political commentators certainly haven't.

Now we've stepped out from behind Alice's shattered Looking Glass, perhaps the debate between 'Labour investment' and 'Tory cuts' can assume something nearer reality.

Watch the interview: 2/3rds through this clip at 11:48

Sexed up evidence

Alastair Darling is accused of sexing up evidence that our economy will grow by 1.5% next year and 3.5% thereafter.

"You can grow your way out of a recession you can't cut your way out of it," he responded.

"Over the past two years I have ensured that annual borrowing has grown from £34 billion to £175 billion. That's a fivefold increase," he boasted.

"Over the next two years this government will borrow more than every government added together over the past 315 years," he crowed.

"What's more, we are now witnessing the fastest growth in unemployment in the nation's history," he added.

Finally, stepping beyond his brief, he reassured the public that all measures would be taken to locate known weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.