Osborne to admit debt plan in ruins

Chancellor George Osborne is to tell the electorate this week that his debt plans are in ruins, with the deadline for bringing UK debt down pushed back by many years.

Osborne, who has already come under fire for cutting too far and too fast, had staked his reputation on maintaining the UK's AAA credit rating but lost this earlier this year. Now, the Chancellor is poised to reveal his plans to bring down public debt by 2015-2016 at the latest have had to be pushed back by two years as the embattled UK economy struggles to deal with a range of problems. Having originally committed to bring the burden of public debt down by 2015-16 at the latest, the Chancellor extended that target by a year in December and is now preparing to concede another delay to...