Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has said that the UK faces a "tough financial climate" in the coming years. He told Today presenter Evan Davis that the Labour Party would prescribe "tough medicine" in order to cut public expenditure.

And he insisted that Labour had spelt out its tax and spending plans very clearly:

"In the case of tax rises, we've published all the detail of the rises. We need to halve the deficit over four years totalling £19bn, and in the case of spending, we've made it absolutely clear that there are going to be tough choices with around £38bn of reductions against plans that will have to be found.

"So I don't think it's fair to say that we have left the public in any doubt about the size and scale of the turnaround and what's involved."

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