GEORGE OSBORNE’S blue-collar Budget claims were torn apart yesterday by Britain’s top economists, who warned that most working families would be worse off.

The Chancellor attempted to cover up benefit cuts for low-paid workers in Wednesday’s Budget by announcing a “national living wage” of £7.20. Welfare axeman Iain Duncan Smith led cheers as the Chancellor hailed it as proof the Tories were “the party of the working people of Britain.”

But his claim was crushed by Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) calculations showing that most working people will lose more than £1,000 a year. Speaking at the IFS post-Budget analysis, director Paul Johnson said: “The key fact is that the increase in the minimum wage simply cannot provide full compensation for the majority of the losses that will be experienced by tax credit recipients. That is just arithmetically impossible.”