Brown and Cameron at war over boom and bust

David Cameron launched a searing attack on Gordon Brown for wrecking the economy with his "boom and bust" policies.

In a keynote speech, he said the Prime Minister had left "a broken economy" and that Labour's strategy had "fundamentally failed".

It came at the end of a week in which Mr Brown earned a significant opinion poll "bounce" for his handling of the banking rescue. A survey found that public support for Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling had soared, with 42 per cent naming the pair as best to handle the crisis, up two points.

Mr Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne dropped three points to 31 per cent, said ComRes for the BBC's Daily Politics.

Determined to prevent Mr Brown cutting the 10-point Tory lead, which was already down from 20 points since the summer.

The Tory leader said the Prime Minister was personally responsible for Britain's current woes because he allowed debt and borrowing to spiral out of control in the past 10 years.

In his fiercest assault on Mr Brown since the banking crash started, Mr Cameron said that while the Conservatives backed the thrust of the Government's bail-out plan, they would ruthlessly highlight Labour's "complete and utter failure" on the economy. Mr Cameron also warned that the crash had shown that it was time for Britain to move away from its dependence on the City.

He said a more "balanced economy" should cut reliance on financial services, housing and public spending for growth and instead increase the role of hi-tech industries and manufacturing. Mr Cameron also signalled that "in coming weeks" the Tories would outline yet more policies, similar to his pledge to freeze council taxes, to help families cope with the downturn.

After weeks of appearing to be on the back foot over the financial crisis, the Tory leader used his speech to Bloomberg in the City to reject the idea that politics needed to lurch to the Left.

He rammed home the message that a bipartisan approach to recapitalisation of the banks did not mean he agreed with Mr Brown on the economy. "The complete and utter failure of their economic record has never been more clear to see.

"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," he said.

Mr Cameron claimed Mr Brown had wrongly assumed he could run a budget deficit in a boom, that he could "let debt rip" and that he had abolished "boom and bust". "Any proper consideration of what the policies of the last decade have produced leads us to three simple words: we need change. What's happened over the past 10 years is that Labour has broken our economy and we must fix it," Mr Cameron said.

"We've had irresponsible capitalism presided over by irresponsible government. Instead, what we need is responsible free enterprise, regulated and supported by responsible government. Though Gordon Brown is trying to rescue the banks, we now need a plan to rescue the economy."

However, a new BBC Daily Politics/Com Res poll today confirmed the "bounce" in the polls for Mr Brown. It found 42 per cent considered Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling the politicians they "trust most to steer Britain's economy through the current downturn". That was an increase of two points while the Tory leader and shadow chancellor George Osborne dropped three points to 31 per cent.

Mr Cameron ridiculed the Prime Minister for telling the City four years ago that he wanted to encourage risk takers and for last year declaring "a golden age for the City of London" and added: "Now he's describing that very same time as an 'Age of Irresponsibility'.

"Gordon Brown is hoping that his whirlwind of summitry will mean that we will forget what has come before. Forget that he stripped the Bank of England of its powers to supervise the City. Forget how he actively encouraged the risk-taking culture in our banks. Forget that he promised that he had abolished boom and bust. Forget, as we enter a downturn, where jobs, home and livelihoods will be lost, that he was the one who created this mess. But I won't forget and the British people won't forget."

Asked about Mr Cameron's comments, Mr Brown 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 country wants everybody who can to work together through these difficult challenges."