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London - Britain's government defended itself on Thursday against charges that its massive spending cuts will hit the poor hardest and may not even be enough to tackle the country's huge deficit.
George Osborne, the finance minister, insisted his plans were fair a day after unveiling measures that will cost 490 000 jobs, slash budgets by around a fifth and take the axe to the welfare state.
He told the BBC the process had "involved some hard choices but I think they are fair choices".
"The richest 10% are hit hardest... the richest pay the most but everyone makes a contribution," added Osborne, officially known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He rejected criticism from a leading economic think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which warned that the cuts might not be sufficient to meet Osborne's target of getting rid of the public deficit in four years.
IFS acting director Carl Emmerson said the benefit cuts "on average will impact those in the bottom half of the income distribution more than the top half of the income distribution."
Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government came to power in May saying it had to take drastic action to eliminate the country's record £154.7bn deficit.
Osborne said the cuts would save Britain from "economic ruin" and blamed mismanagement by the previous Labour government, which says the cuts are a gamble that could tip the world's sixth largest economy back into recession.
He rejected the IFS's warning that the coalition should have a backup plan for possible further tax rises or deeper spending cuts if the spending review failed to balance the country's books.
"We've got a plan now, we know where we are going, we are going to deal with our debts. Yes, it is a hard road to follow, but it leads to a brighter future," said Osborne.
Alan Johnson, finance spokesperson for the opposition Labour party, said the cuts were "unfair as well as unwise."
"This slash-and-burn approach is something we wouldn't do," he told the BBC.
Under the cuts, worth around £81bn according to revised government figures, the coalition will slash nearly half a million public sector jobs over four years from a total of around six million.
Government departments face average cuts of 19% except health and overseas aid, which are ring-fenced.
Welfare was one of the worst-hit areas, with savings of seven £7bn as Osborne confirmed that child benefit would be cut for many higher earners while the state pension age would be raised to 66.
British newspapers said the cuts would change the country forever and mark the start of a dramatic retreat by the state from its citizens' lives.
The Financial Times called it "Britain's biggest economic gamble in a generation", while the left-leaning Guardian daily saw a dark future ahead as the axe falls "on the sick, the poor and on working parents."
But the rightwing Daily Telegraph heaped praise on the cuts, saying they signalled that an intrusive state was at last starting to pull in its tentacles.
