UK public finances see rare surplus in January - Financial Times

Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, has lent his support to George Osborne's deficit reduction strategy, saying he is "very impressed" with the chancellor's plans for rapid cuts in public spending and higher taxes to fix the hole in Britain's finances.

The strong public endorsement of Mr Osborne's fiscal consolidation plans by a leading figure in the US administration will discomfit Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, who has often cited American plans for a slower pace of cuts as evidence that there is an alternative to the coalition's strategy.