A lot of that spending was to bring the Army etc into the 21 century to fight a war that Labour put us into. Even by their own admission
In the most important Budget speech for a generation, the Chancellor is likely to concede that the economy is heading for its worst annual decline in more than 60 years.
Wednesday's Budget would be a "day of reckoning" for Labour, the Tories said, with Mr Darling forced to finally "lay bare" the worst public finances "in the world" and the wider economic carnage of the party's past decade in power.
Two leading economic forecasters predict another 18 months of "serious grief" for the British economy and sound a warning that any recovery is at least a year away, with almost a million more job losses to come.
One of Labour's leading union backers, meanwhile, will say that the Budget is the "last chance" for the party to show why it was elected in 1997.
Mr Darling is expected to admit that the economy will shrink by at least three per cent this year and that the Government has been forced into record levels of borrowing that will mean tax rises and billions of pounds of spending cuts.
Britain facing 'worst recession since World War II', Darling to admit in Budget - Telegraph