Acting Labour Leader Harriet Harman has denounced today’s emergency budget as “bad for growth” and “bad for jobs”.
Responding to George Osborne's first Budget as Chancellor, she also branded the raft of spending cuts “reckless”, “short-sighted” and “unfair”, and accused the Chancellor of hitting the poorest the hardest by raising VAT sharply.
Additionally, Harman, fixed her sights on the Liberal Democrats and their capitulation to the Conservatives on VAT and an accelerated programme of deep cuts.
The proposed spending cuts are the equivalent of putting “every man and woman in Coventry out of work” said an especially vexed and animated Harman.
“From national treasure to treasury poodle” was Harman’s withering verdict on Vince Cable, who has been complicit in the defining of the emergency budget, and his transformation since becoming Business Secretary in a Tory-led government.
