GEORGE OSBORNE does not have support for his cuts from a single credible economist, Cambridge University’s Dr Ha-Joon Chang said yesterday.

Dr Chang said that the Chancellor’s austerity drive, which is set to continue until 2020, had already left the economy in a “mess.”

The former UN adviser and author of Economics: The User’s Guide delivered his withering verdict ahead of an address at a Labour “state of the economy” conference in London on Saturday. 

“Perhaps if the Conservatives listened to a broader range of viewpoints the economy wouldn’t be in such a mess,” he said.

“No sensible economist agrees with the way the Conservatives are handling the economy at the moment, so I hope this conference will play a major part in developing Labour’s alternative plans for a more dynamic, fairer and more sustainable economy.”

London Business School economist Linda Yeuh, economics journalist Paul Mason, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey and Helen Walbey from the Federation of Small Businesses will also address the conference. 

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he had convened it to “help stimulate the debate about how we can create a future economy where prosperity is shared by all.”

Labour leader Jeremy ­Corbyn also launched the party’s Workplace 2020 consultation yesterday. It will lead to the creation of policies to replace the Tories’ Trade Union Act. 

“Instead of David Cameron’s Agency Britain, with its zero-hours contracts, insecurity and wage undercutting, we will be engaging with workers and employers to shape the policies that will deliver the high quality jobs of the future,” Mr Corbyn told an audience at the headquarters of a green energy firm in Gloucestershire. 

“Instead of a race to the bottom in jobs, pay and workplace rights, we will be shaping a different approach for the 2020s — based on a full-employment, high-skilled workforce, with decent pay, rights for employed and self-employed and a voice at work through collective bargaining.

“That’s the basis for a new business settlement in the economy of the future, one that benefits both workers and employers — and a break with the low-pay, low-investment, low-productivity record of Tory Britain.”