Osborne Slams Government Plans To 'Borrow Without Limit'

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has attacked the Prime Ministers suggestion the Government could "borrow without limit" to ward off recession.

In his first speech since the row over his meetings with a Russian billionaire, Mr Osborne slammed plans to borrow without limit as a "weak, irresponsible choice" that would make it more difficult to achieve a "sustained reduction in interest rates".

He also attacked the Chancellor, accusing him of being 'less than clear' about how the national debt would be paid back.

Delivering his speech in a lecture at the London School of Economics, Mr Osborne said: "It saddles this generation and the next with a burden of debt that could take a decade or more to pay off.

"It means you end up spending more on paying debt interest than defending your country or educating your children. It means damaging tax rises at the very moment when you want to be reducing taxes to help the recovery."

The shadow chancellor added: "Gordon Brown's talk of a spending splurge tries to give the impression of activity and action, when in fact it is the road to economic ruin... under Gordon Brown everyone knows we will have higher taxes in the recovery."

Osborne has used today's speech to promise a "stick to fiscal responsibility", while interest-rate cuts and measures like freezing council tax "get money in people's pockets".

Meanwhile, in a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Labour were voted more trusted to look after the interests of "ordinary people" during the looming economic crisis by a margin of 33% to 28%.

Overall the Conservatives were down 3% since October 4, to 42% and Labour were up 2% on 33%. Liberal Democrats remained unchanged at 15%.

The survey showed Tories lead had plunged 24 points to nine points over a period of five months.

(JM)