This sounds about right:
Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, has privately warned that whichever leader wins the election next week will be kicked out of power for decades because of the severity of budget cuts they will have to instigate, it was claimed today.
As the leaders of the three main political parties prepare themselves for tonight's final, economy-themed TV debate in Birmingham, the warning ringing in their ears is that the job of Prime Minister could be a poisoned chalice.
Meanwhile, the Economist writes of the candidate's whistling past the financial graveyard:
In 2008, just before the fall of Lehman Brothers, Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, let slip the prediction (controversial at the time) that Britain was in for the worst recession in sixty years. Two years, one semi-nationalised banking system and six quarters of painful contraction later, he has been proved right. The government deficit is 11.6% of GDP. Public debt is forecast to peak at £1.4 trillion (around 75% of GDP) in 2014-15 (a figure that ignores public-sector pension liabilities). Big spending cuts and tax rises will be needed to restore order to the public finances. Yet the looming age of austerity has figured only fitfully in a campaign that has so far been dominated by the unexpected rise of the Liberal Democrats.
