Infrastructure costs money but he has made a taboo of public borrowing.

Moving back towards the 2% level would therefore mean higher public borrowing.

And despite public borrowing still jumping, the government may yet spend more, he said.

That ripping noise you just heard was Darling tearing up the public borrowing forecasts.

But the about-turn on public borrowing was almost as spectacular.

The only question would be: by how much would they allow public borrowing to rise?

The economy depends far too heavily on private and, to a lesser extent, public borrowing.

Those rules required public borrowing to be equal to capital investment over a full economic cycle.

Any sharper downturn and Mr Brown would breach his "golden rule" for public borrowing.

There is no alternative but to try to reflate the economy through extra public borrowing and spending.

The lack of viable alternatives -whether public borrowing or bonds -gives these companies a captive market.

Despite declaring he would cut taxes and reduce borrowing, he raised them and increased public borrowing even more.

And public borrowing had been rising for several years as Labour spent too much relative to its tax income.

He has dropped calls for joint debt issuance to fund public borrowing, which is a red flag for Merkel.

Fitch warned on Wednesday that its top credit rating is at risk due to weak growth and high public borrowing.

Now leading a minority government, Gillard is desperate to re-gather support in a country where public borrowing is viewed with suspicion.