Hasn't Gordon Brown changed his mind on the scale of debt he will allow

"Interest payments on the national debt are £25 billion a year. We're spending more on national debt repayment than on schools or law and order, and that is a situation I don't want as a hallmark of a Labour governmente... The public borrowing requirement was £23 billion last year. We plan to get it down very substantially."

Then, turning on the Tories, Mr Brown barked: "In 1992, they [the Conservative government] predicted the deficit would be eliminated, and by 1996 it had become £50 billion. I will not allow the country to get into that state again... We're not going back to that sort of situation where imprudent decisions, based on a misreading of the cycle, lead us to make spending apportionments that we cannot afford."

For more have a read of Jeff Randall in The Telegraph as he recalls a meeting with Gordon Brown in 1998.