Cameron says try harder after poor GDP figures

Published on 27/07/2012 04:07

DAVID Cameron insisted yesterday that the country needs to “roll up its sleeves” to get business going in the UK again.

The Prime Minister was speaking the day after the latest GDP figures revealed that the UK’s economy had shrunk for a third quarter in a row and the fifth time in the last seven quarters.

His comments came as further pressure mounted on Chancellor George Osborne, with a senior party figure, Lord Richard Ryder, a former Treasury minister and Chief Whip, suggesting that there was a need for a change of plan. Lord Ryder said the Chancellor needed to develop some supply side reforms “very urgently indeed”.

Asked if Mr Osborne should give up his role as political strategist in the party, he said: “Of course.

He’s not a strategist at all, he’s a tactician. Both he and Mr Cameron are tacticians, and this government lacks a strategist, it lacks somebody who’s capable of building the big picture, a tapestry master if you like.”

Meanwhile, Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable was forced to deny he was angling for Mr Osborne’s job, after saying he would “probably” make a good Chancellor.

The Prime Minister blamed the international situation and eurozone crisis as well as the policies of the last Labour government for the fact that Britain is in the worst recession since GDP quarterly figures were first measured in 1955.

He said: “They are very disappointing figures, and there is no doubt about that. I think one of the things they show is the extent of damage that was done to the economy in the boom-and-bust years.

“We were the ones with the most over-indebted banks, the most over-indebted households, and We had the biggest budget deficit of virtually any country anywhere in the world.”