British Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown this morning acknowledged his plans to invest billions of pounds of taxpayers' money into the health service was a political gamble.
But Mr Brown, who has been accused by some economists of dropping his cautious approach by counting on a better performance of the British economy, said he was taking no risks with the economy.
"It [the budget] is not a gamble with the economy, it is a gamble politically. The economy is stable and we will continue that stability," Mr Brown said in a televised interview with GMTV.