THE Chancellor's Budget is being made against the worst economic crisis facing the UK since World War II.

Graham Dines

THE Chancellor's Budget is being made against the worst economic crisis facing the UK since World War II. The morning started with the worst possible news for The Treasury - public borrowing is a record �90 billion and unemployment hit 2.1million, an increase of 177,000 a month.

Borrowing for the last financial year was �55.3 billion ahead of 2007/8 and smashed chancellor Alistair Darling's pre-Budget forecast of �78 billion.

The figure came as net borrowing for March hit �19.1 billion, the highest level for a single month since records began in 1993, the Office for National Statistics said.

This pushed the Government's current budget deficit to �52.3 billion, the largest since records began in 1946 and ten times more than the �5.3 billion in the previous year.

In Prime Minister's Questions immediately before the Budget statement, Gordon Brown told the Commons the Government would do “everything we can” to help people who have lost their jobs return to work.

He was responding to Tory leader David Cameron who said the recession would be “the most deep and painful”' since the Second World War.

Read Political Editor Graham Dines' live Budget blog