Peter Spencer Quotations

But a prudent chancellor would keep some money in the bank so that he could do something about it.

With the election well out of the way, the chancellor's forecasts have taken a step back towards reality.

The problems were plain to see at the time of last year's pre-Budget report in December, but instead of addressing them then, the Treasury chose to dress up the UK finances for the election.

We are certainly not out of the woods yet. Growth is still well below par - just hitting the euro-zone average - and with consumer spending dropping and the pressure piling on exports to take up the slack, we could be in for a bumpy 2006.

We expect interest rates to remain at 4.5 percent until the end of the year, but another rate cut cannot be ruled out.

The Treasury can't have it both ways. They can't expect us to pay higher tax, fuel and utility bills while keeping the economy afloat by shopping in the high street.

The simple fact is that he'd already run out of money this time last year,

On this basis, the doubling in the oil price since 2003 will have knocked something like three quarters of a percentage point off GDP growth during this year alone.

The Chancellor is blaming the UK economic slowdown on the recent spike in oil prices and the weakness of the European economy, but this is unrealistic,