Darling: Budget decisions are right

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The Chancellor revealed on Wednesday that borrowing this year would soar to a record £175 billion as he targeted high earners with a new 50p top rate of tax.

Mr Darling faced demands to justify his forecasts for the country's growth after he said recovery would be under way by the end of the year and predicted 1.25% growth in 2010.

Mr Darling told BBC News: "We do need to raise revenue. The amount of money we got from the banking sector, for example, that has gone down, and stamp duties, from housing./2

"These receipts have gone down so I have had to take extraordinary actions, but these are, I'm afraid, extraordinary times."

He said: "Look, there's a wide range of forecasts and if you look, for example, at my forecast for next year, I think our economy will grow at just over 1%, which actually is in the range of outside forecasts.

"There's a lot of uncertainty around at the present time but I believe that action we have taken now, the money we have put into the economy over the last few months, together with the action that other countries are taking - you know, America, which has got a much bigger problem in some ways than we've got, they've put a lot of money into the economy - that will have an effect."

He went on: "Next year I think the economy will start to grow and I think it will grow thereafter, but that is only going to be the case if we continue to take the action necessary to make sure that we help people, we help families, we help businesses get through this."

Shadow chancellor George Osborne called the Budget "another nail in the coffin" for Labour.

He told Sky: "I can't think of a Budget that's had a worse press. I can't believe there's a single person in Britain who wakes up today thinking 'I'm more confident about my future, I'm more confident about the country's future, as a result of what I heard yesterday'."