Some economists are questioning whether Chancellor Alistair Darling has done enough to stop Britain plunging into a long and painful recession.

Mr Darling announced a temporary cut in VAT and higher taxes for top earners to get people spending again and breathe new life into the economy.

But it will mean massive Government borrowing and financial experts warn that the measures will not prevent massive job losses across the UK.

The Chancellor could do little to disguise the grim state of the British economy.

He predicted UK plc would shrink next year by between 0.75 per cent and 1.25 per cent - although it would then bounce back in 2010 with positive growth of 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent.

While £3bn in capital projects will be rushed through as part of the "pump priming", there will also be considerable tightening on expenditure.

Just months after he said public spending would go up by 1.8 per cent a year, Mr Darling revised that figure to 1.2 per cent - a reduction of around £12bn.

Mr Darling's insistence that the UK economy was in "a position of relative strength compared to the past" brought cries of derision from opposition MPs.

But he said it was right to abandon the Government's much-vaunted borrowing rules - describing the new arrangements as a "temporary operating rule".

"In the current circumstances, to apply the rules in a rigid manner would be perverse and damaging," he said.

"We would have to take money out of the economy, making a difficult situation worse."

After the 55-minute statement, shadow chancellor George Osborne insisted the measures announced would double the national debt to £1 trillion and leave a "huge unexploded tax bomb" ticking under the public purse.

He told MPs: "The Chancellor has just announced the largest amount of borrowing ever undertaken by a British government in the entire history of this country.

"To pay for it he has placed a huge unexploded tax bombshell timed to go off underneath the future economic recovery."

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