Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls today accused George Osborne of landing British families with a £96 billion budget deficit.
Mr Balls claimed the Chancellor was forced to make more deep cuts in today’s spending review and borrow more money due to the “failure” of his economic plans.
Mr Balls said: “Prices rising faster than wages. Families worse off. Long-term unemployment up. Welfare spending soaring. The slowest recovery for over 100 years.
“And the result of this failure? Not balancing the books by 2015 as he promised, but a deficit of £96 billion.
“He’s failed on living standards, growth and the deficit — and families and businesses are paying the price.”
Mr Balls drew attention to Mr Osborne’s first growth forecasts three years ago which foresaw GDP increasing by six per cent by today and went on to highlight the actual rise, just 1.1 per cent.
In a raucous session in the Commons the Prime Minister had earlier compared Labour leader Ed Miliband to the character Bert from Sesame Street.
But hitting back for his leader, Ed Balls referenced the Seventies children’s TV show Rainbow in one of his attacks on the Chancellor.
He said: “His friends call him George, the President calls him Jeffrey, to everyone else he’s just Bungle, Mr Speaker.”
Responding to heckles from another coalition frontbencher, he added: “Even Zippy on the front bench can’t stop smiling, Mr Speaker. Calm down Zippy, calm down.” Mr Balls attacked the Government for spending money on projects such as police commissioners and free schools while, he said, frontline services were being cut.
He then highlighted how three years after the government’s infrastructure plan was launched 80 per cent of projects were yet to start.
He went on: “He pledged to get the banks lending — but bank lending is falling month by month.
“He made the number one test of his economic credibility keeping the triple A credit rating — but on his watch Britain has been downgraded not once but twice.”
