BBC Question Time: deficit of UK and Greece

"We inherited a deficit forecast to be worse than Greece's" — David Cameron, 26 March 2015

"The budget deficit was forecast to be bigger than the budget deficit in Greece" — David Cameron on BBC Question Time, 30 April 2015

In spring 2010, it was forecast that the deficit of Greece would be 9.3% of GDP for that year and 9.9% for 2011. For the UK these years were forecast at 12% and 10%, respectively.

So, things did appear worse for the UK when compared to Greece in 2010. But fast forward to 2015 and there is a different story for these years.

Importantly, forecasts aren't safe bets - they go up and down based on revisions which often occur and this claim is no exception.

It's now thought that Greece had a deficit of 11% of GDP for 2010 and 9.6% for 2011, according to a forecast from the industrialised country comparisons by the IFS. Not much of a change from the 2010 forecast.

The UK's forecast, however, is now much lower than had been previously forecast - 10% and 7.8%, respectively.

Although Britain may have been forecast to have had a worse deficit than Greece in 2010, this forecast didn't actually reflect reality (or the most recent forecast of it).