Maude: 'We are not going back to cuts of the 1980s'

The TUC has warned that the spending cuts will "cost jobs, hammer services and hit the poorest hardest."

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has said the cuts show that the government is practising the "rotten politics of division".

The criticism comes ahead of a rally, organised by the TUC, which thousands of people are expected to attend.

The Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said Ed Miliband's claim of cuts harking back to the 1980s was 'absurd'.