According to the paper, Darling has admitted that new measures may be needed in this spring’s Budget announcement.

The news follows statistics that confirm the UK is officially in a recession as GDP shrank by 1.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 – the second consecutive drop.

The new measures, according to The Guardian, will include help for the car industry, along with a UK equivalent to Barrack Obama’s green jobs plan.

The moves could mean increasing the UK’s debt further, yet it is becoming increasingly obvious that further action is required, as public confidence in the Government’s ability to navigate the credit crisis is falling.

According to a political poll released today that was carried out for The Independent, confidence in Labour is falling as the Conservatives are 15 per cent ahead when it comes to voting intentions.

Other questions in the poll include asking respondents if they agreed that “The Government has put in place the right solutions to the economic problems facing Britain,” which only a third of respondents agreed with, and if “The Conservatives were right to describe the 2.5 per cent cut in VAT as just plain foolish,” which 55 per cent of people agreed that they were.

In response to the reports, Treasury officials told Reuters yesterday that work on the budget forecast has only just started, and no decisions have been made as yet. A Treasury spokesperson added that the latest announcements, including interest rates and the pre-Budget measures, will take time to feed through.

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