The Daily Telegraph reports today that the Treasury's budget shortfall soared to £10.2bn last month, leaving the Government's coffers in a perilous state as the UK enters what could prove a prolonged downturn.
The figure was a third more than economists expected and the largest since records began in 1993, driven by higher government spending and lower tax receipts.
"The public finances are in no way ideally positioned for the slowdown," said David Page, an economist at Investec. "They've almost no room to step up borrowing."
The news makes the recent 63% increase in our payments to the EU's terminally leaky budget to £115m (net) every week once again look an extremely irresponsible choice by both the Government and those MPs who subsequently endorsed the deal.
With public finances tightening, the price of such unjustified extravagance to as wasteful an organisation as the EU will be paid either through higher taxes or cuts affecting public services within each of those MPs' own constituencies.
An outcome for which each of them must take personal responsibility.
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