Opposition concentrates on missed targets Ed Balls rounded on the coalition following the chancellor's statement, warning that the government's aims for reducing Britain's debt mountain were off course amid a downgrade in growth forecasts and an increase in borrowing estimates. "Today after two-and-a-half years we can see, and people can feel in the country, the true scale of this government's economic failure," the shadow chancellor told the House of Commons. In 2010 the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast that the economy would be growing by 2.8 per cent this year, he said - but instead there would be a slight contraction. "The chancellor's strategy has been completely derailed," he said. Growth is being downgraded, this year, next year, the year after and the year after that too. The national debt would be higher at the end of the parliament than when the coalition was elected in May 2010, said Mr Balls, to the detriment of the chancellor and his economic credibility. He's not waving but drowning. The Labour MP also attacked the coalition for the admission that Britain would miss its target to have debt falling by 2015-16 as a percentage of national income. As a result British industry was "falling behind in the global race," Mr Balls claimed, with growth even slower than in the eurozone. However, many commentators said that the shadow chancellor's performance was far from overwhelming. Mr Osborne had presented a highly political budget with measures to squeeze the pensions of the rich while in effect freezing benefits for three years. He has deployed those savings into infrastructure spending, a corporation tax cut and a rise in capital allowances for companies - all designed to stimulate economic growth. There will also be measures aimed at "squeezed" middle Britain including a cancellation of the planned 3p rise in fuel duty. Mr Balls insisted that Labour would not shy away from welfare reform if it was in power, saying he believed that everyone able to work should work, "no ifs or buts." The shadow chancellor satirised the Tory posters from several years ago which featured a photograph of David Cameron with the slogan "We'll cut the deficit, not the NHS." "They are cutting the NHS, not the deficit," said Mr Balls. But Mr Osborne retaliated by claiming that Labour, despite its criticisms of the UK's growing debts, would itself borrow even more if it was in power. The opposition party could not even say whether it would reverse the cut in the upper income tax rate from 50p to 45p, said the chancellor. "If he's so against it, if it is a moral outrage, will he reverse it, yes, no?" he said. "That was the worst response to an autumn statement I have ever seen in this house," said Mr Osborne.