Alistair Darling has pledged to cut the budget deficit by half UK government borrowing could be less than forecast this financial year after better-than-expected figures for February and revised January data.The UK government borrowed £12.4bn in February, less than economists had expected, official figures have shown. The figure for January was also revised sharply downwards, to £43m from £4.3bn. Borrowing in the current financial year has now reached £131.9bn, but analysts say the full-year total may be less than the government's £178bn forecast. Until recently, most analysts thought the government's borrowing forecast was too optimistic. The Office for National Statistics said that the overall effect of the latest revisions to historical data for the year had cut overall borrowing for 2009/10 by £2.9bn. Despite the revisions and February's better-than-expected figure, government borrowing is still running at record highs for the year, partly due to reduced tax receipts because of slow economic growth.[Read more...]