The very last thing the British economy needs is higher taxes on wealth creation but that is what Darling announced, alongside a temporary reduction of VAT that will make little difference to high street spending.

Its end result will be a nation in which the most successful flee abroad, put in less effort or simply make more use of tax avoidance experts.

Meanwhile, the hard-working majority of middle earners will be even more overburdened by the cost of supporting the ever-expanding welfare classes and legions of state employees.

Neil Kinnock once warned people not to get sick or grow old if Margaret Thatcher won a second term in office.

This newspaper today warns people not to aspire to be successful or independent of the State if Labour wins a fourth one.

The threat of a new command economy, over which Brown thinks he can preside like some Soviet-era eastern bloc dictator, is very real.

Even those foolish enough to be cheered by the thought of a state attack on high earners should examine the destruction of the public finances which has taken place under Brown.

As Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne noted yesterday in a blistering Commons performance, public spending is now so out of control that even Darling’s massive tax rises are not nearly enough to get the national books back in order.

In fact the Chancellor admitted he will borrow £78billion in this financial year rather than the £43billion he predicted. The sums he envisages borrowing for the next five years after that are frightening: £118billion, £105billion, £87billion, £70billion, £54billion.

That’s more than £500billion of borrowing over six years resulting in a doubling of the national debt to £1,000billion. And that’s based on Darling’s optimistic view that solid economic growth will boost revenues from as early as 2010.

He also neglected to mention that, for seven years in a row until now, public borrowing has overshot forecasts despite the economy growing steadily.

The truth is that despite Gordon Brown’s time at the Treasury coinciding with a benign economic decade when North Sea oil revenues were still substantial, growth was strong and cheap Chinese goods kept the lid on inflation, he has still managed to almost bankrupt Britain.

He could have built up our own sovereign wealth fund for use in a downturn. Instead, he poured hundreds of billions extra into unreformed and inefficient public services, allowed the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of workers into politically correct non-jobs and loaded businesses with hundreds of pages of costly new regulations.

The major economic challenge now is to move non-frontline staff out of the tax-dependent public sector and into employment in the wealth-generating private sector. Another key task is to get people off long-term welfare dependency and into work.

The idea that a fourth-term Labour administration, heavily dependent on financial and political support from the public sector trade unions and Left-wing pressure groups, could carry out either of these tasks even if it wanted to is fanciful.

In a fleeting remark Darling revealed he has based his sums on the expectation that public spending will grow by just 1.2per cent a year from 2011 but gave no indication as to how he could impose such restraint. That’s because he cannot.

The figure is just a notional one to allow the Treasury to arrive at figures suggesting spending will be back in balance by 2015.

What the economy really needs are radical tax cuts on work and enterprise in the form of higher personal allowances, a national insurance holiday and the reinstatement of the 10p starting rate of tax – the precise opposite of what Darling has unveiled.

In the longer term these should be funded by a public sector recruitment freeze – forcing the managers of state services to re-allocate resources towards the frontline tasks people value and away from the politically correct initiatives they do not.

But the only way Britain can be rescued from the disastrous economic policies of this Government is if the electorate is offered a persuasive alternative by the Conservatives. Osborne gave a stirring response but the Conservatives are being branded the “do nothing” party.

They need to say, loud and clear, exactly how they would put Britain to rights.

Leading financial organisations worldwide have been warning Brown for several years about the structural deficit he has created in Britain’s public finances.

These days the Prime Minister likes to view himself as the saviour of the world. But, back at home, the Crown Jewels of British industry are falling by the wayside and this package will do almost nothing to save them.

In recent days speculation has been rising that the PM is planning a general election as soon as spring.

Given his manifest cowardice when a prior opportunity to go to the country presented itself in autumn 2007, such claims should be treated with scepticism.

But it is to be profoundly hoped they are true because every week that goes by under Labour is a week in which the  economy sinks deeper into the mire.