The £30bn hole

With all the talk of televised debates,the FT tries to bring the party leaders back on firm ground this morning.

After analysing the party manifestos,the paper concludes that

Britain’s three main political parties all have a £30bn hole in their manifestos that will have to be plugged with huge tax rises or spending cuts after the election

and

quotes Robert Chote of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies who says

“The skirmishes over tax and spending that we have seen so far during the campaign hardly reflect the scale of the fiscal challenge that will confront whichever party has the misfortune to emerge victorious,”