July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. budget deficit ballooned to the widest since records started in 1946, putting pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to ease decade-old borrowing rules. The shortfall rose to 24.4 billion pounds ($49 billion) in the three months through June, the Office for National Statistics said today. Last month, the deficit widened to 9.2 billion pounds, more than the median forecast of 7.4 billion pounds in a Bloomberg News survey of 17 economists. Brown's rules are buckling as the economy edges towards its first recession since the early 1990s, forcing borrowing higher. The government, which has already cut taxes this year, may find it hard to meet its March forecast of a 43 billion-pound deficit this year as revenues wane. Government bond yields rose today.
The shortfall rose to 24.4 billion pounds ($49 billion) in the three months through June, the Office for National Statistics said today. Last month, the deficit widened to 9.2 billion pounds, more than the median forecast of 7.4 billion pounds in a Bloomberg News survey of 17 economists.
Brown's rules are buckling as the economy edges towards its first recession since the early 1990s, forcing borrowing higher. The government, which has already cut taxes this year, may find it hard to meet its March forecast of a 43 billion-pound deficit this year as revenues wane. Government bond yields rose today.
We could close all the tax loopholes that the rich use to drain billions from the Exchequer, but that would hurt our "competitiveness".
He could stop throwing money at PFI contracts that cost the country zillions in ridiculously inflated payments to private industry, irrespective of whether they deliver good, bad or any service whatsoever.
He could do lots of things, but his thinking is so closed and his cowardice so great that nothing is possible except yet another fudge of the Country's finances. keep to the Fen Causeway
