Search: Alistair Darling Budget
The small print of Alistair Darling's Budget is being pored over as voters digested the bleakest financial statement on the public finances in decades.
The Chancellor revealed that borrowing this year would soar to a record £175 billion as he targeted high earners with a new 50p top rate of tax.
And he confirmed the UK was in the grip of the deepest recession since the Second World War, with the economy set to shrink by 3.5% in 2009 - more than double his previous forecast.
It is likely he will face demands to justify his claims that the country will return to growth before the end of the year - enabling him to halve borrowing levels within four years.
He set out plans for a tax and spending squeeze that will bring in £6 billion by 2012 rising to £17 billion by 2014, although that will still not bring the Budget back into balance until 2018.
His calculations, however, depend upon a forecast growth rate of 1.25% next year, rising to a heady 3.5% in 2011.
Within an hour-and-a-half of his Commons statement, the International Monetary Fund issued its own forecasts, predicting the UK will still be in recession next year, shrinking by a further 0.4%.
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The IMF forecast for the current year was also more pessimistic than the Chancellor's, estimating a 4.1% contraction in output.
How far the economy has shrunk so far this year will become clear on Friday when the official figures on GDP for the first quarter are released by the Office for National Statistics.
Mr Darling insisted that he had "good grounds" to be confident following the concerted action taken by governments around the world to stimulate their economies. However the Tories said that he had delivered a "dishonest Budget" based on "fantasy forecasts".
