McDonnell was responding to Osborne’s warning over factors that could dent Britain’s recovery, in a speech he gave in Cardiff, Wales, on Thursday.
The British Chancellor said that 2015 was "the worst for global growth since the crash and this year opens with a dangerous cocktail of new threats from around the world”.
Anyone who thinks it’s mission accomplished for the economy is making a mistake — 2016 is mission critical
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) January 7, 2016
"This year, quite simply, the economy is mission critical. Commodity prices have fallen very significantly. Oil, which was over $120 a barrel in 2012, dipped below $35 earlier this week. That is good for consumers and business customers here in Britain, bad news for the oil and gas industry, worrying for the creditors who have lent to it, and a massive problem for the countries that depend on it," he said.
The only antidote to dangerous cocktail of global economic risk is confronting complacency and delivering the plan we’ve set out
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) January 7, 2016
Osborne noted that the political developments in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and Iran, "concern us all". His speech ran counter to his upbeat assessment of the UK economy given in the Autumn statement to parliament, where he said that "since 2010, no economy in the G7 has grown faster than Britain”.
"We’ve grown almost three times faster than Japan, twice as fast as France, faster than Germany and at the same rate as the United States. And that growth has not been fuelled by an irresponsible banking boom, like in the last decade."
Hangover Time
However, John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commented: "This Chancellor has mixed his own cocktail of rising consumer debt, an over reliance on borrowing from overseas, with a lack of sustained investment, while failing to support manufacturing, and topping it all off with lighter regulations for the banks. The problem is that the rest of us taxpayers will be the ones left with the hangover".
"Labour has consistently warned that George Osborne has to wake up and stop being complacent about the warning signs that the global economy could be slowing, but instead he has chosen to play political games with fiscal targets that would simply tie his hands."
"We all know that the Tories have given up on an export-led recovery with manufacturing in a downturn and a trade deficit at worrying levels. Instead this Chancellor has delivered a fragile, unbalanced recovery built on sand due to his austerity policies and he is now trying to get his excuses in early," McDonnell said.
Osborne gets his excuses in early by warning of a cocktail of threats to our economy. He helped mix the cocktail and now has no solutions
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) January 7, 2016
"But just as the flooding over Christmas exposed that his cuts are hurting not helping, this speech today only tells the public what they already know — George Osborne has warnings but no solutions."
