Osborne: Architect of disaster

Even the Tories' Lib Dem bedfellows were calling for his head after it became clear that he shrank Britain's economy by 0.7 per cent between April and June.

It is the biggest quarterly drop in gross domestic product (GDP) since the height of the financial crisis three years ago.

The Office for National Statistics attributed it to a collapse in the construction and manufacturing industries.

But economists and unions said the figures also laid bare an "underlying weakness." Some called it a "disaster."

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "We are a country of winners but we are being led by a bunch of economic losers.

"The only record this Chancellor holds is the shameful one of presiding over the longest double-dip recession since records began.

"Our economy is shrinking. The deficit is actually getting worse and we are being told there is no end in sight to the government's austerity programme.

"It is clear that the government's economic policies are a total failure."

He warned of a lost generation, with 90 per cent of the cuts still to come and many working people mired in debt and despair.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber added: "The government's austerity strategy is failing so spectacularly that it has wiped out the recovery completely."

And top Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott accused Mr Osborne of being a "work-experience" Chancellor who should be replaced by Business Secretary Vince Cable.

"George Osborne has got no business experience," Lord Oakeshott told Radio 4.

"He has never worked outside politics. He is doing surprisingly well for a Chancellor on work experience.

"But really in a torrid time like this I think we do need absolutely the best people available."

Lord Oakeshott described the figures as "dismal" and showed that Britain's economy was going into "cold storage."

For his part Mr Cable said he didn't agree and meekly claimed that there was "a very good team in the government and the Treasury."

Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls accused Mr Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron of killing off Britain's economy in "a deep and deepening recession."

The last double-dip recession was in the 1970s but lasted only six months. And Britain's economy recovered faster from the Great Depression than the current mess.

Mr Osborne said that the "disappointing" figures highlight Britain's "deep-rooted economic problems."

willstone@peoples-press.com