George Osbourne's boast that the economy is "recovering faster than forecast" cannot mask the class war on Britain's working people his government has launched.

The Chancellor brags that the coalition's "long-term economic plan" is "delivering security for the people of this country."

Tell that to the 642,000 public-sector workers who have lost their jobs since David Cameron and Nick Clegg's nauseating love-in in the Downing Street rose garden in 2010.

Tell it to the 912,000 young people unable to find work. The half a million now reliant on foodbanks to survive.

There is no security for the hundreds of thousands trapped in zero-hours contracts or the million who have joined the ranks of the underemployed since the 2008 crisis of capitalism.

There is no security for workers who now need to find over £1,000 to take their case to an employment tribunal if they are unfairly dismissed.

Mr Osborne's much-vaunted "recovery" sees the British economy still smaller than it was at the time of the crash. Among G7 nations only Italy has performed worse.

Real wages have fallen by an average 2.2 per cent a year since 2010 - and as TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady has warned this reflects a trend of falling pay rises that has scarred this country since Thatcher's day.

Tax breaks on savings aren't much good to workers with no money to save.

PCS leader Mark Serwotka is right to point out that the "over-hyped" rise in GDP "benefits only a wealthy few." Indeed, to the extent that it is fuelled by housing debt bubbles encouraged by the Chancellor's Help to Buy wheeze it sets Britain up for another economic collapse.

Shocking news earlier this week that the richest five families in the country own more wealth than the poorest 12.6 million people combined illustrate the rampant inequality this government does all in its power to worsen.

With pay and bonuses soaring for a handful at the top it is hardly surprising that bosses' organisations such as the British Chambers of Commerce and EEF think Mr Osborne deserves a "pat on the back."

But few of the measures announced yesterday will do anything for ordinary people. An increase in the personal tax allowance - which will save the basic rate taxpayer just £1.07 a week - is offset by the fact that under universal credit two-thirds of any increase will be clawed back in lost benefits.

The arbitrary benefits cap being imposed from next year without reference to shifting numbers of people reliant on them is par for the course for a government that demonises disabled people and those forced to claim housing benefit because of skyrocketing rents. Labour's commitment to impose one too shames its leadership.

This was a fifth austerity Budget that, as GMB leader Paul Kenny said, "reeks of the stuck-up complacency of the well-heeled elite."

Ed Miliband was right to lay into the government's record of falling living standards for the many and tax cuts for the few.

But Labour's response must be much bolder before working people can trust it to change the austerity tune.

A giant of the party who died this month once committed an incoming Labour government to "an irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families."

Since the 1980s governments of both parties have shifted wealth and power in the opposite direction.

Mr Miliband should renew the pledge made by Tony Benn and turn Britain's fortunes around.