Clegg defends spending curbs amid Nobel laureate's criticism

Britain's new Nobel Prize winning economist, Professor Christopher Pissarides, has warned that the Government was taking "unnecessary risks" when the economy was weak.

He accused Chancellor George Osborne of having "exaggerated" the threat of a Greek-style sovereign debt crisis unless drastic action was taken to cut the UK's record deficit.

But Mr Clegg insisted that the deficit had to be dealt with if prosperity was to be restored.

"There is nothing pro-growth about having this dead weight of debt around our necks, there is nothing pro-growth about spending 120m-a-day just simply on the interest on our debt," he told The Andrew Marr Show.

"We need to deal with this, we need to have a plan to deal with it. It is not a cavalier plan."

He dismissed claims the Government was cutting too swiftly, saying that the measures would be implemented "very evenly" over four years.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Professor Pissarides said the threat of a Greek-style debt crisis was "minimal" and Mr Osborne should have been more concerned about the economy.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander said the spending review had "failed the fairness test".

"It is simply wrong to have a deficit reduction programme which takes more from Britain's children than from Britain's banks," he said.

The he said Mr Osborne's cuts were part of a 'political strategy'.

LIB dem leader's troubled conscience

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has described how he wrestled with his conscience over the spending cuts.

The Liberal Democrat leader said that he found administering the biggest financial retrenchment in living memory "morally difficult".

But appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, he insisted there were no "pain-free alternatives" to the measures set out by Conservative Chancellor George Osborne.

"I have certainly searched long and hard into my own conscience about whether what we are doing is for the right reasons.

"I am not going to hide the fact that a lot of this is difficult. I find it morally difficult. It is difficult for the country."

He denied that when he patted Mr Osborne on the back after he delivered his statement to in the House of Commons – amid cheers from Tory MPs – there had been any sense of triumphalism.