Londoners paying price of PM's manic meddling, says Boris

The Mayor described the Prime Minister as a "manic meddler" who was desperately trying to boost the economy to improve his electoral fortunes.

He accused Mr Brown of treating Londoners like "a bunch of overweight and exhausted laboratory rats" who he hoped would do his bidding.

Mr Johnson's attack came as it emerged the capital would bear the brunt of the punitive measures in yesterday's pre-Budget report.

While the capital is home to 12 per cent of the UK population, the latest figures show it is has 25 per cent of the people earning over £100,000 a year, who will be most affected by Chancellor Alistair Darling's plans to tax the rich. At the same time London, with its comparatively youthful population, will benefit less than other parts of the country from extra money put into state pensions.

The Mayor criticised Mr Brown for gambling with the financial fortunes of the capital. "He is like some sherry-crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver at roulette, and who now decides to double up by betting the house as well," he wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.

"He is like a drunk who has woken to the most appalling hangover, and who reaches for the whisky bottle to help him dull the pain."

Mr Johnson said the Government's plans to increase National Insurance contributions would hit employees as well as businesses.

He asked: "Might it not have been better, if you were going to splurge £20billion in tax cuts, to spend it on cutting National Insurance and helping business to keep people in work?"

The Mayor repeated his plea for sustained investment in big infrastructure projects such as Crossrail, the Tube upgrade, and the Olympics, to help London through the worst of the recession. He said: "When credit has dried up, when confidence has collapsed, it is the duty of the Government to keep the economy moving with sensible and affordable investment.

"That is why it is vital to push on with the big infrastructure projects in London that will not only deliver jobs and growth in the short term, but which will help to make the capital and the UK economy better placed, long term, to compete. The tragedy of our current predicament, and the tragedy of Gordon Brown, is that by his previous profligacy he has left himself so little room for manoeuvre."

Mr Johnson's director of strategy, Anthony Browne, said the mini-budget had "put its gun sights" directly on the capital. He told the Standard: "Alistair Darling has done far more to redistribute wealth here than anywhere else... It is almost as though the budget is the revenge of England on the affluent of Kensington and Chelsea." But Mr Browne admitted the Chancellor's plans would help the poorest people in London, which has four of the 10 most deprived boroughs in the country. Those on low incomes would benefit from increases in tax credits, while the child poverty rate - the highest in the country - would be reduced by child benefit increases.