<p><br /> Britain will be on "the road to ruin" without painful spending cuts and tax rises in the Budget, Chancellor George Osborne has warned.<br /> </p><p><br /> Mr Osborne will unveil on Tuesday what is expected to be the harshest set of economic measures seen in decades in a bid to tackle the UK's record deficit.<br /> </p><p><br /> Labour said the Government's determination to go "further and faster" with austerity measures was "profoundly misguided" and would "crush" the fragile recovery.<br /> </p><p><br /> But Mr Osborne insisted it was unavoidable given the state of the nation's finances - promising measures would be "tough...but fair".<br /> </p><p><br /> He said the package - which has been signed off by senior Government figures from both coalition parties - would set the framework for the next five years.<br /> </p><p><br /> Asked just how bad the Budget measures would be, he said: "I do not see it as badness - I see it as decisive action to deal with Britain's record budget deficit.<br /> </p><p><br /> "We sit here as the country in Europe with the largest budget deficit of any major economy at a time when markets and investors and businesses look around the world at countries that can't control their debts.<br /> </p><p><br /> "We have got to deal with that. In that sense it is an unavoidable Budget."<br /> </p>
