Vince Cable: Osborne playing a hopeless game of catch up

4.07.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 29th Sep 2008

Vince Cable today accused his Tory counterpart George Osborne of “playing a hopeless game of catch up” over the financial crisis.

The Conservative frontbencher addressed his party conference today to set out his economic proposals, which included a proposal to freeze council tax rises for two years.

Dr Cable said: “Rather than making tough economic choices over tax and spending, George Osborne is simply passing the buck to local councils, expecting them to make arbitrary cuts.

“This false promise of freezing council tax will be entirely dependent on individual councils being able to cut their budgets, which is likely to leave the poorest areas with continuing council tax rises.”

Dr Cable also criticised Mr Osborne’s “vague aspiration of national tax cuts at some point in the future”.

He added: “This country needs a party that is willing to take the tough choices today to reduce the tax burden for people on low and middle incomes hit hardest by the financial crisis.”