It's pointless Ed Balls railing against George Osborne. Remember Labour's last Chief Treasury Secretary, Liam Byrne ? He confessed all in his pithy note penned to the Coalition's successor, '' There's no money left - good luck', he wrote. As this Country has learnt to its cost, Labour governments have a deep tradition of devaluations, financial crises and budgetary crises. The Blair/Brown Reign of Terror ( 1997-2010 ) has ended in the same way the as in 1979 and 1951. Utter failure.

It was a joke, a tradition set by outgoing Treasury secretary to the incoming one. Ed Balls incidentally has been proven to be correct on everything he has forecast, perhaps Osborne should take notice of him, after all this country was in strengthening growth etc when Labour handed the economy over to the Tories, pity Osborne put it into reverse. Shame that News International ran an insidious vitriolic and personal attack on Brown and told lies about him, if that had not happened we may today have been in a much stronger position. I know I am right, my pocket tells me so.

A joke ??  Oh yes, I see now. Hilarious. Labour need some new scriptwriters as well as some more believable creative accountants.

Remember the old saying: there are lies, damned lies and Labour statistics.

1) Despite what Balls says employment (and unemployment) are both better than was forecast, despite weaker GDP. 2) Cutting VAT wouldn't help hard-pressed families. Living standards are under pressure due to rising petrol, energy and food prices. None of which will be affected by a VAT cut. All a VAT cut would do would weaken sterling and push up imported inflation. 3) Similarly any reduction in the present deficit reduction policy would cause sterling to weaken (as confidence in UK fiscal policy falls) and push up inflation. 4) City bonuses are already taxed at 50%. They were only taxed at 40% when Balls' government was in power. So the "bonus tax" is just a smokescreen.

Unemployment is still higher than when the Tories took office and the full force of their crazy plans has not taken effect yet. Also the only reason why unemployment has not risen is because of the disproportionate amount of part-time jobs people are being forced to take because they cannot find full-time employment, the number of full time post created in the private sector has also fallen dramatically. And those claiming unemployment benefit has risen dramatically with this and growth being continually forecast down is why Osborne has to borrow £42 billion more than this time last year. Get your head out of the sand. Osborne is wrecking the British economy, last year borrowing was down, tax receipts up, this was as a direct result of labour's measures, now Osborne has stripped them out of the economy we are seeing the damage the Tories are doing. 2) Cutting VAT WILL help hard pressed families, unless you are another that think VAT only applies to luxury goods? VAT is a regressive tax, it harms poorer families because poorer families spend more of their income on necessities. While they are doing this others are cutting back which is what is hurting our high streets and will continue to do so. 3) Are you really saying that you do not want to see a reduction in the deficit because it would weaken sterling? Then what the hell is the Tory chancellor doing with all these austerity measures? What are they for exactly? You are destroying your own argument (and Osborne's) 4) Banks need proper regulation and if they do not like t it then they can sling their hook. I totally object to funding the bonuses of the bankers who caused this problem with their greed. While things are good they pocket the profits, when they are bad they force the taxpayer to bail them out and still take huge bonuses, it is not just wrong it is immoral!

As for "R,McGeddon" parting quip it is laughable and this is why:
"The UK is set to spend £710bn in 2011-2. The debt payments will constitute c.7% of total government expenditure.  And whilst in raw terms £50bn is the highest interest payment the UK will make, it is significantly less that what John Major's government were paying between 1992-7. In Gordon Brown's first budget, debt interest payments made up over 9% of total government spending. To be exact, debt interest was 30% higher as a portion of total government spending in 1998 than it is today. This need not even be a problem. When Clement Attlee's government was achieving growth of 10%+ in the 1940s, debt as a proportion of government spending was over 10%. So the next time a growth denier hits you with the debt interest argument, be sure to refer them to the graph above. Also, when  Gordon Brown is accused of spending too much during the good years, one can see that Brown performed admirably in reducing John Major's debt interest payments to less that 5% of the total government spending. Not quite the spendthrift we are led to believe. Some right wing opinions have said that this was only achieved because Brown spent more. But I include a graph below that shows debt interest payments as a proportion, not of spending, but instead GDP. As you can see, the results of this data is even worse on the Tories."

Sorry tried to supply thelink but it did not come up unless I allow it access to my clipboard, however, the information was taken from the brilliant blog of Dr Eoin Clark of the Green Benches.

Bit rich from Balls to leave the politicking out of the economics. Balls is a pit bull who has a track record of being a political animal.

Why do the media/Press not challenge Balls to detail the effects of the 'too fast and too deep' cuts that he says are being made. Not the scare stories that x thousand nurses or police jobs are ESTIMATED to be lost IN THE FUTURE by self interested parties but actual job losses now. All the figures suggest that the government are still spending more, that the cuts have not yet had much impact. Why is he not held to account for his utterances?