'You're to blame for our broken economy': Rattled Cameron seeks to undermine Brown







The Tories desperately sought to undermine Gordon Brown's renewed popularity yesterday with a concerted attack on his economic record.

In a choreographed move, David Cameron and George Osborne both signalled an end to the political truce over the financial crisis.

The Tory leader used a speech to the City to tell Mr Brown that he 'cannot hide from his mistakes' - a message which was echoed by the Shadow Chancellor in a radio interview.

David Cameron made his attack in the City on Gordon Brown's handling of the economy. Earlier, the Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne spoke out on the BBC's Today Programme

They blamed the Prime Minister personally for Britain's 'broken economy', saying that he had allowed debt and borrowing to spiral out of control.

The intervention showed that the Tories have been stung by recent plaudits for Mr Brown's handling of the financial crisis.



Earlier this month, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne rose above the political fray to offer the Government support for its £500billion bail-out of the banking system.

Since then, Mr Brown has enjoyed a bounce in popularity and has been feted at international summits for the widely-copied rescue plan.

With the issue likely to take centre stage for months to come, the Opposition are desperate not to let their previous lead in the polls slip away.

At the London headquarters of Bloomberg yesterday, Mr Cameron said Mr Brown's economic policies had resulted in 'complete and utter failure' and his errors had led to the downturn.

The Prime Minister 'cannot hide from his mistakes, he cannot hide from the truth,' he said.



The Prime Minister has just returned from an EU conference, pictured here with its president Jose Manuel Barroso, where he was lauded for the rescue plan he developed for the financial markets

'This crisis has highlighted just how mistaken Labour's economic policy has been. The economic assumptions that Gordon Brown made in the last decade now lie in ruins.'

Moments earlier, Mr Osborne told the Today programme: 'When the house is on fire, as it was a few days ago when the banking system was near collapse, then we supported the Government.

'But then you are entitled to ask who built the house, who allowed it to catch fire and how are we going to rebuild the house so it never catches fire again.

'If you look now at the burnt wreckage of the last ten years of economic policy, we can see that the mistakes that were made were made by the man who was the Chancellor at the time - Gordon Brown.'

George Osborne told the Today programme that mistakes in economic policy were made by Gordon Brown



Mr Cameron also pointed out that Labour had allowed unchecked immigration to help fuel the economic growth, without regard for the pressure on schools, hospitals and transport systems caused by unprecedented levels of newcomers.

This was 'unsustainable', he said.

Mr Brown refused to hit back at the Tories and Treasury minister Yvette Cooper accused them of 'juvenile political games'.

Asked about Mr Cameron's wide-ranging attack, the Prime Minister said: 'My undivided attention is on taking this country through the difficult times as a result of a global problem that started in America.

'I think the whole country wants everybody who can to work together through these difficult challenges.

'I am determined that we as a nation come through these difficult times.'

In a further sign of his current positive international reputation, Mr Brown was yesterday given the platform of an interview with the respected Washington Post to promote his plan for a new international banking system.

He said the 'old post-war international financial institutions' were out of date and had to be rebuilt for a new era in which there is 'global, not national, competition and open, not closed, economies'.

Mr Brown's comments came in advance of a weekend summit at Camp David between U.S. president George Bush, French president Nicolas Sarkozy - also the current EU president - and European Commission boss Jose Manuel Barroso.