Darling set to announce budget date

Sky said Darling is widely expected to make his budget statement on March 24, increasing expectations that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will call a general election for early May.

No one at the Treasury was immediately available to comment.

Latest opinion polls show the Conservatives' previously large lead over the Labour party has shrunk in recent weeks to the point where a hung parliament, in which neither main party has a majority, is possible.

Brown is expected to delay calling the election -- which must be held by June -- in the hope that the tentative economic recovery will help his party.

But data issued on Tuesday showed the biggest goods trade deficit in January in 17 months, a lacklustre rise in retail sales in February, and weak house price data, reinforcing analysts' forecasts of 2010 economic growth at the lower end of the 1-1.5 percent range estimated by the Treasury.

(Reporting by Tim Pearce)