Chancellor George Osborne has denied that the cuts laid out in the government's Comprehensive Spending Review are a "gamble".

"The country needs a decisive plan," he told Today presenter Evan Davis. "We've set out the decisive plan.

"It has some caution built into it, there is of course the freedom for the Bank of England to deploy monetary policy tools as well."

And he added that the measures set out yesterday, cutting £81bn in government spending, command the support both of the IMF and business leaders.

But the shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson, told the programme that the changes reflect the traditional Conservative ideology of shrinking the welfare state and were "unfair as well as being unwise".

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