Budget2011: 'It's hurting but not working', says Labour leader

LABOUR LEADER Ed Miliband has ridiculed government claims that its 2011 Budget is about growth and recovery, saying that the UK economy is "down, down, down".
 
In his response to the Budget announced earlier by chancellor George Osborne, which downgraded forecast for economic growth from 2.1% to 1.7% this year, Milliband said: "Growth is down this year and next year. It's the same old Tories. It's hurting but not working."
 
In a speech laced with sarcasm over government attempts to blame heavy snow late last year for a contraction in the UK economy in the fourth quarter of 2010, Milliband said that the slowdown was because the government was going "to far, too fast" in its plan to eradicate the budget deficit by 2015.

Miliband compared Osborne to former conservative chancellor Norman Lamont ("he's Norman Lamont with an iPod"), who he said was indifferent to the social damage caused by rising unemployment in the recession of the early 1990s.

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(Picture © Department of Energy ad Climate Change)