Biggest peacetime rise in debt
Updated on 22 April 2009
The Chancellor Alistair Darling's budget speech was the grimmest in memory.
He predicted the biggest increase in the national debt outside wartime and the slowest growth in more than 60 years. The 10-year-long party of low taxes and high spending is over. Mr Darling revealed a fiscal hangover that will last decades.
National debt will soar to a record £175bn this year - more than since the second world war - and the economy will shrink by 3.5 per cent, its biggest dip in 60 years.
To help pay for it, there will be a raid on the rich. The tax rate will increase to 50 per cent for those earning £150,000 or more from next year.
Motorists will be hit as usual as fuel duty goes up by 2p a litre.
Similarly, alcohol duties go up by 2 per cent, putting 1p on a pint, along with tobacco duties which are up by the same amount, putting 1p on a pint of beer and adding 7p to a packet of 20 cigarettes.
