‘The truth is that Osborne's policies have exacerbated, rather than diminished, Britain's economic problems’ writes New Statesman’s George Eaton in response to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics which confirmed that the UK economy grew by just 0.2% in the second quarter of 2011 – 0.6% short of the 0.8% growth required to meet the Office for Budget Responsibility's 1.7% growth forecast for the year (which Eaton points out has been downgraded three times):http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/07/economy-grew-osborne-growth
Brendan Barber TUC General Secretary states that the GDP figures show that the ‘cuts are hurting but not working. Ministers told us that deep rapid cuts would get the economy back on course and leave the private sector room to grow. But the treatment has turned out to be worse than the disease, and with the government borrowing more last month than they did a year ago they are not even tackling the deficit effectively’:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-19848-f0.cfm
