Economists back Alistair Darling's 'sensible' spending

Alistair Darling today won the support of more than 60 leading economists over his decision to delay spending cuts.

The group said in two letters to the Financial Times that it would be "positively dangerous" to slash public spending and would risk Britain's economic recovery.

The letters are a direct riposte to one that 20 economists sent to the Sunday Times urging more rapid action to tackle Britain's £178 billion deficit.

Lord Skidelsky, a cross-bench peer and biographer of the economist John Maynard Keynes, organised one letter and accused the Sunday Times authors of trying to frighten the public over the scale of the deficit.

"For the good of the British public - and for fiscal sustainability - the first priority must be to restore robust economic growth," his letter says. "How do the [Sunday Times] letter's signatories imagine foreign creditors will react if implementing fierce spending cuts tips the economy back into recession?"

The other of today's letters, organised by Lord Layard, emeritus professor of economics at the London School of Economics, commends the Chancellor's "sensible" plan for reducing the deficit.

"While unemployment is still high, it would be dangerous to reduce the Government's contribution to aggregate demand beyond the cuts already planned for 2010-11," it says.

The signatories to the letters include two Nobel laureates - Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Solow - and five former members of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, including former deputy governors Sir Andrew Large and Rachel Lomax.

A spokesman for Mr Darling said the letters destroyed shadow chancellor George Osborne's claim that there was a consensus among economists on the need for early action to tackle the deficit.