Osborne vows to keep on chopping

Addressing the Tory Party conference in Birmingham the Chancellor said he intended to slash an extra £10 billion from benefits by 2016-2017, including proposals to limit the number of children per household that parents receive benefits for.

He told parents on benefits that they must make a "financial decision" about whether to have more children and said he was "questioning" whether parents should automatically get more cash if the size of their family increases.

He also said he would cut housing benefits for under-25s and claimed that they should live with their parents if they could not afford to live alone.

The overall message of his speech was a refusal to ease the austerity cuts.

"We will press on. We shall overcome," he stated.

The coalition had made a promise to the British people, he said, that it would "repair the broken economy."

"That promise is being fulfilled," he claimed.

The Chancellor insisted the economy was "healing" but acknowledged it was taking longer than he had hoped.

"We will finish the job we started," Mr Osborne declared.

"We are all in this together" was "more than just a slogan," he said, it "spoke of our values and intent.

"Three years later the message remains the same.

"One nation working hard together. We are still all in this together."

In a breathtakingly cynical move, he praised Adrian Beecroft for his employment legislation slashing proposals and then, in the next breath, brazenly declared: "Workers of the world unite!"

Mr Osborne denied that he was hammering the poor, claiming that there would be more taxes on the wealthy but, in a decision which will further anger the Tory's coalition partners, he rejected out of hand the idea of a "mansion tax."

The Chancellor said: "Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, it's an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich."