Darling gets adamant

Aside from all the talk about the Speaker in this morning’s papers, it’s worth reading Alistair Darling’s interview with with the Times.  What do we learn?  Nothing much – but the adamant defence he puts up for his Budget growth forecasts is quite striking in itself:

“I am not going to change my forecasts,” he said. “I remain confident that we will see a return to growth at the turn of the year.”

The politics of this is fairly interesting.  If you remember, the last time Darling concoted some dubious growth statistics – albeit even more dubious ones, in last year’s PBR – he started backtracking quickly enough in the face of public ridicule.  Not so this time; which suggests he may actually stick close to these growth forecasts in the PBR later this year.  Does the Chancellor genuinely believe them?  Or is he creating room for a spending splurge, to be “paid off” by better growth than everyone else expects?  Taxpayers – and the Tories – should fear the latter case.