Balls: Osborne ‘in denial’
The Shadow Chancellor has accused George Osborne of being in “denial” about the “self-defeating extreme austerity” which he said is the reason why “Britain is stagnating while America is growing strongly”.
In a
statement Ed Balls said: “Not only was last month’s botched Budget deeply unfair, it failed to come up with the plan for jobs and growth Britain desperately needs right now.”
Speaking ahead of this week’s growth figures for the first quarter of 2012 he predicted the country is likely to have grown by around 0.3% to 0.5% and he said such “sluggish growth” meant the UK economy has “barely grown at all over the last six months”.
“George Osborne’s economic mistakes mean this is now a slower recovery than even the 1930s depression. And unless he changes course I fear Britain could be set for a lost decade of slow growth – bumping along the bottom while other countries race ahead."