Britain's opposition Conservatives called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to apologise on Wednesday for telling parliament last week that capital expenditure would grow until 2012. "The prime minister has been caught absolutely red-handed. He made a statement to the house about capital expenditure growing every year and the fact is it is being cut," Conservative leader David Cameron said, demanding an apology.
Cameron and Brown clashed over public spending during prime minister's questions in what is becoming a weekly rehearsal of the arguments that will dominate campaigning for a general election due within a year. "Capital investment is rising ... to 44 billion (pounds) in 2009/10 and that is to help complete the building of the Olympics. Thereafterwards it will fall," Brown told parliament.
But last week, the prime minister said: "Capital expenditure will grow until the year of the Olympics." London will host the Olympic Games in 2012. Cameron cited government budget forecasts published in April showing net capital investment declining from a peak of 44 billion pounds in the current financial year to 26 billion in 2012-13.
The opposition Conservatives lead in opinion polls ahead of the election and are seeking to return to power for the first time since 1997. Whoever wins the election will have to curb a budget deficit that will reach 175 billion pounds this year - 12 percent of gross domestic product. Many commentators say whichever government wins will have to reduce spending, but Brown has tried to paint the Conservatives as the party of savage spending cuts - reprising a strategy that succeeded in elections in 2001 and 2005.