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In an exclusive interview with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One's Panorama, Chancellor Alistair Darling replied "That's nonsense" when questioned if he thought the public now wanted the Government to disclose details of spending cuts to deal with the budget deficit.

Mr Darling said that while "some things will have to be cut" Britain was not heading for a return to the "dark ages".

On the eve of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's final speech to the Labour Party Conference before the next General Election, Panorama reporter John Ware goes to the heart of the toughest question facing politicians preparing to go to the polls – what to do about the national debt?

He also speaks to the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne about what the Conservative party propose to cut; the former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, on defence spending; and the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence, about potential contingency spending cut plans to policing.

Unedited transcript of part of Alistair Darling interview with John Ware

Alistair Darling: "As we go through to the pre-budget and we go through to the budget next year and certainly by the time of the election I think people will want to know the direction of travel of all the political parties, ourselves included. And you know I've always been clear about facts actually."

John Ware: "They want specifics actually. We know the direction of travel, cuts – we've got that far, but what people want are specifics surely?"

Alistair Darling: "That – that's nonsense. Yes there will be – have to be difficult decisions and yes there will be some things that will have to be cut. But the idea that somehow you go from a situation where you know you're – you're increasing your spending to the dark ages where you switch out the lights, that's…"

John Ware: "All right priorities, okay I'll tell you what I won't ask you..."

Alistair Darling: "Not only is it simplistic, it is to insult people watching this programme. It is just not right."

John Ware: "I think some people watching might think it's simplistic and an insult not sooner rather than later to give them some details actually."

The Chancellor went on to say: "I've said that we do need to set out our priorities because people will want to know, when times are tighter, choices become all the more important. So people will want to say, okay what are your priorities, so yes we do need to do that."

Asked if spending priorities, as opposed to specific details of cuts, would be disclosed at the Pre Budget Review later this year, Mr Darling said: "We'll need to set out our priorities and I will set out my pre-budget report when I'm ready to that in the House of Commons as people might expect. But you do need at a time like this when you've got choices to be made – you've got to set out your priorities."

Mr Darling was also asked about internal Treasury documents recently leaked to the Conservatives who said they showed the Government was preparing for 9.3% cuts across spending departments from 2010 to 2014.

John Ware: "But the papers that were leaked the other day – made those assumptions and they put a figure of around 10%, you're not – you're not disowning that figure?"

Alistair Darling: "Those – those..."

John Ware: "Is that a figure you can accept? Roughly?"

Alistair Darling: "Those figures are the ones the drive our forecast. They're not Government plans, you've got to make assumptions and those assumptions will change as you – as you – as you reassess your forecast."

John Ware: "Sure, but 10% feels about right?"

Alistair Darling: "No, those are simply the assumptions that underpinned our forecast at that time. I made the point in April that things were so uncertain then, to attempt to do some sort of spending review at that time would have been daft and you know I'm absolutely – clear that that was the right decision at the time. That's why I said I would have to come back to that in the autumn. What I was clear about, though, no matter what else is happening we need to halve the deficit over a four-year period, but we also need to make sure that we entrench the recovery first of all."

George Osborne on spending cuts

Asked when the Conservatives would provide more details of what they proposed to cut, the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "We will set out more specifics, at our Conservative Party Conference and in the months leading up to the General Election."

Mr Osborne told Panorama a smaller state was inevitable to avoid a fiscal crisis: "Yes the state will be smaller because we've explicitly said that spending will be cut. If you mean by a smaller state as well actually the state interfering less in people's lives, allowing local communities to – make their own decisions more, trusting local government more than central government?"

He declined to be drawn on how much smaller the state would be under a Conservative government but said: "What you've got to look at is the fundamental way in which government works and you've got to understand that the model of government developed in the 1950s, these big central bureaucracies, is not suited to the modern age and will not work at a time when public expenditure has got to be tight."

Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire on policing contingency plans

The Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence, told Panorama that she was preparing contingency plans for cuts of between 10 and 20% and this would inevitably mean fewer police officers.

She said: "Anything between 10 and 20% is what we've projected is likely to be the outcome whatever government gets into power in relation to where we think the financial deficit lies."

She said politicians who promised that the frontline could be protected "probably lack(s) a dose of reality".

Asked if there will be fewer police officers on the streets, she said: "The honest answer is yes there probably will be."

Defence spending

On Defence, former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, told Panorama significant savings could be made by mothballing or selling the RAF's Eurofighter.

Lord Guthrie: "Do we need so many fast jets? Actually we've never used very many on any occasion recently, barely into double figures..."

John Ware: "You'd put the Eurofighter in the hangar, in the shed?"

Lord Guthrie: "I would put a lot of them in the shed if I couldn't sell them to somebody else."

Lord Guthrie also said Britain could no longer afford the tens of billions to replace the UK's independent submarine-launched nuclear deterrent Trident, or to build the two super-carriers to which ministers have said they remain committed, scheduled to enter service in 2016, though he accepted it would take a "brave" politician to take these "very tough decisions".

However former Commander-in-Chief, Fleet, Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent, told Panorama: that cancelling either would mean Britain was "just opting out of the of the new world order. The nation would be ashamed of that... we won't be contributing and therefore we won't be listened to... to overtly withdraw from our national and international responsibilities I think, I think, it would be in my mind a bizarre political error."

Notes to Editors

Any use of information in this release must credit ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's One's Panorama: The Truth About Cuts.

Panorama: The Truth About Cuts, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One, Monday 28 September 2009, 8.30-9.00pm

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