Chancellor George Osborne has announced plans to launch a fresh assault on Britain’s welfare budget to help deliver an extra £25billion of spending cuts.
He warned that 2014 would be the “year of hard truths”, in a speech designed to put the economy back at the heart of the political agenda, and pressurise Labour into spelling out its plans.
However, the chancellor found himself under fire from all sides last night, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who accused the Conservatives of wanting “cuts for cuts’ sake”.
The Lib Dem leader claimed Mr Osborne risked making a “monumental mistake” by targeting poorer people who work.
The SNP also seized on the speech as further evidence that Scotland must escape the “financial straightjacket” of the Union in this year’s independence referendum, while Labour claimed the chancellor was trying to divert attention from the ongoing “cost-of-living crisis”.
Conservative MPs are increasingly anxious about the party’s re-election hopes next year, with a poll at the weekend showing more than a third of people who backed the Tories in 2010 would not vote the same way now.
Mr Osborne’s strategy is to cast the party as being on the side of “strivers”, and as the only one to be trusted to continue to repair the country’s battered finances.
During a speech delivered in Birmingham yesterday he said: “We have a choice in 2014. We can give up, go back to square one, risk everything.
“Or we can confront the hard truth that more difficult decisions are needed – and work through the plan that is turning Britain around.”
Savings ideas floated by Mr Osborne to help find another £25billion after the next election included cuts to housing benefit for under-25s, and restricting council housing for those earning over £65,000 a year.
Mr Clegg sought to distinguish the Lib Dems from the other parties, saying: “You’ve got an agenda on the right which appears to believe in cuts for cuts’ sake, and an agenda on the left which believes in spending for spending’s sake.”
SNP Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie put the row in the context of the referendum, saying: “No matter how hard they try to hide it, it is becoming increasingly clear what a ‘No’ vote means for Scotland. More welfare cuts, more spending cuts and more years of economic mismanagement.”
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said: “George Osborne is desperate to stop talking about the cost-of-living crisis on his watch. But that won’t stop working people from doing so as they are on average £1,600 a year worse off under the Tories and prices are still rising faster than wages.”