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Pre-Budget Report

Let me make a bit of progress. It is not just that the Conservative party does not accept the case for helping and simply walks away instead; it is also that its position on borrowing is completely confused. The Leader of the Opposition said only a couple of weeks ago:"““Borrowing goes up. That is inevitable and you have to allow it to happen””." A week later, the shadow Chancellor said that borrowing was ““the wrong approach””, yet his shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) had said a day earlier that"““to increase borrowing to deal with an economic downturn is a perfectly sensible thing to do.””" He was absolutely right on that point, if not on any other.