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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Backing for spending cuts delay | Backing for spending cuts delay |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| More than 60 senior economists have signed two open letters that back the chancellor's decision to delay government spending cuts until 2011. | More than 60 senior economists have signed two open letters that back the chancellor's decision to delay government spending cuts until 2011. |
| The letters in the Financial Times say that any measures to trim the budget deficit this year could risk dragging the country back into recession. | The letters in the Financial Times say that any measures to trim the budget deficit this year could risk dragging the country back into recession. |
| They are being seen as a riposte to the 20 economists who on Sunday backed the Conservatives' call for cuts this year. | They are being seen as a riposte to the 20 economists who on Sunday backed the Conservatives' call for cuts this year. |
| Those economists said cuts were needed in 2010 to reassure the markets. | Those economists said cuts were needed in 2010 to reassure the markets. |
| They put this forward in a letter to the Sunday Times. | They put this forward in a letter to the Sunday Times. |
| The Treasury recently said it it hoped the public deficit - the difference between government spending and the income it receives through taxation and other sources - would stay below £170bn for the current financial year. | The Treasury recently said it it hoped the public deficit - the difference between government spending and the income it receives through taxation and other sources - would stay below £170bn for the current financial year. |
| Figures released on Thursday showed that the government had to borrow a further £4.3bn in January to help cover the deficit. | |
| 'UK's image' | |
| Those signing the two new letters include two Nobel laureates - Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz - and five former members of the Bank of England's interest-rate setting committee. | |
| One of the letters, organised by crossbench peer Lord Skidelsky, accused the authors of The Sunday Times letter of trying to "frighten" the public over the scale of the deficit. | |
| It asks how "foreign creditors will react if implementing fierce spending cuts tips the economy back into recession". | |
| "For the good of the British public - and for fiscal sustainability - the first priority must be to restore robust economic growth," it says. | |
| The other, organised by Lord Layard, emeritus professor of economics at the London School of Economics, says Mr Darling's plan for reducing the deficit was "sensible". | |
| "While unemployment is still high, it would be dangerous to reduce the government's contribution to aggregate demand beyond the cuts already planned for 2010-11," it says. | |
| 'Wrong bandwagon' | |
| The issue of reducing the government's deficit and wider public debts has become a political battle ahead of the general election. | The issue of reducing the government's deficit and wider public debts has become a political battle ahead of the general election. |
| A Conservative spokesman said: "Twenty leading economists, plus business leaders, including Richard Branson, agree with us that the failure to have a credible plan to reduce the deficit threatens to undermine the recovery and push up interest rates. | |
| "We are happy to have that debate with the government." | "We are happy to have that debate with the government." |
| But a spokesman for Mr Darling said that the latest letters showed that shadow chancellor George Osborne had "jumped on the wrong bandwagon". | |
| "His judgment is wrong and his approach would risk derailing the recovery," the spokesman said. |