| Britain faces a "fiscal crisis" and is no longer "resistant" to the prospect of a humiliating and damaging debt downgrade, Moody's has warned. In an acutely embarrassing blow for Alistair Darling only hours before today's pre-Budget report, the ratings agency said that Britain faces the threat of a debt spiral unless drastic action is taken to rebuild the public finances. Within four years almost 10p in every pound of tax paid by British families and companies will go straight towards interest payments on the national debt, even in an optimistic scenario, the agency said, the Telegraph reports. Alistair Darling will admit today that Britain faces an era of deep spending cuts as he pledges to halve the Ł180bn budget deficit while protecting hospital, school and police services. In a surprise move he will disclose a Treasury “assessment” that has been conducted in recent weeks to determine the sums needed to safeguard the front line in health, schools and the Home Office, the Times reports. The FT adds that Alistair Darling will flesh out the biggest squeeze in public spending for a generation in his pre-Budget report, with only schools, hospitals and the police being spared average cuts of about 14%over three years. Mr Darling’s pledge to protect “frontline services” sets out Labour’s election battlelines, but implies three years of pain for all other areas of spending, including defence, housing and business support. A handful of senior traders in a Royal Bank of Scotland joint venture are set to share a bonus pool of more than $40m (Ł25m) this year. Details of the payments are likely to provoke new anger about pay in the financial sector. The Government has been trying desperately to prevent a possible bumper bonus round this year and may use today’s Pre-Budget Report to announce a tax on bonuses, the Times reports. |
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