Got it wrong again Darling.

Not something my wife's said to me, but the fact that (surprise surprise) Alistair Darling can no longer disguise with flim flam the fact that the UK budgetery plans are going pear shaped. A gloss is being painted on it, but you can just see this is going to get worse than the prediction even here.

"LONDON (SHARECAST) - The British economy is in for a tough year, warns Chancellor Alistair Darling who’s owned up to underestimating the depth of the downturn.

"I remain optimistic that we will get back into growth, but 2009 will be a difficult year," he told the BBC ahead of the annual Budget on 22 April.

Darling is widely tipped to dramatically revise growth forecasts announced in last November’s Pre-Budget Report. Then, he predicted the start of a recovery in the second half of the year.

Now, it looks like the start of 2009 was no better than the last quarter of 2008 when Britain’s economy shrank by 1.6%. “In the first three months of this year I have seen nothing that doesn't tell me that this position is going to be equally bad,” he said.

"If you look at the problems we have got at the moment, there is no doubt that the depth of this recession here and across the world is far greater than people were predicting last year.”

Darling is expected to predict the UK economy will contract by between 2.5% and 3% in 2009, that’s the worst performance since World War Two.

Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the BBC found that the UK’s deficit is about 2.7% more than Darling acknowledged in November.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the government may have to find an extra £39bn a year by the end of 2015/16 to plug the gap in its finances.

If the government decided to use only tax-raising measures to balance the books, it would cost the average family about £1,250 a year in taxes."

Source Sharecast