Shrinking economy prompts stormy PMQs
“Disappointing” economic growth figures have triggered an especially boisterous prime minister’s questions this lunchtime.
Ed Miliband used all his questions to attack the prime minister on the economy, after GDP figures for the final quarter of 2011 showed the economy contracted by 0.5%.
David Cameron responded by insisting the government would not deviate from its deficit reduction plans on the basis of a single set of economic results.
“This is how out of touch the prime minister is,” Mr Miliband said.
“People up and down the country are saying he’s going too far too fast in deficit reduction. Why doesn’t he just for once put his arrogance aside and admit he knows how to cut jobs but he doesn’t know how to create them?”
Mr Cameron replied by citing the comments of the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Angel Gurria, who said a failure to deal with the deficit would result in a lack of growth “because confidence will not recover”.
Mr Miliband responded by arguing that the deficit would not be cut if there continues to be no growth, however.
“They’re out of touch with people’s lives, they’re taking a reckless gamble,” he continued.
“For millions of people up and down the country it’s hurting but it’s not working.”
Mr Cameron said Britain’s economic credibility had been restored internationally. “Britain is no longer linked with countries like Greece and Ireland,” he said, to roars of approval from the government backbenches.
The prime minister also criticised Mr Miliband’s decision to appoint Ed Balls as the new shadow chancellor.
“If it was such a good decision to appoint the shadow chancellor, why didn’t he appoint him in the first place?” he asked.
Mr Cameron did not repeat the defence used by his chancellor, George Osborne, yesterday that snowy weather in December was largely responsible for the economy’s poor performance.
“They are disappointing – even when you’ve excluded what the Office for National Statistics say about the bad weather,” he admitted.
Many pundits quickly dubbed Mr Miliband the winner of the exchanges, but the Labour leader received mocking laughter from Conservative MPs when he said that “when we left office the economy was growing”.
Mr Cameron said the theory that Labour had offered the coalition a “golden inheritance” was a “laughable proposition”.
