SHADOW Chancellor Ed Balls was accused yesterday of showing “feeble and inconsistent” opposition to Tory plans that spell £30 billion worth of spending cuts.

Green MP Caroline Lucas fired the shot at Mr Balls as he explained why Labour was backing the government’s budget responsibility charter.

The party’s MPs were ordered to troop through the lobbies alongside Tory and Lib Dem colleagues to pass the charter by 515 votes to 18, which includes Chancellor George Osborne’s plans to slash public spending.

Mr Balls committed to cutting Britain’s £90bn deficit every year, while insisting there was a “stark difference” between his plans and Tory cuts.

Defending his position, the shadow chancellor said Labour would cut the deficit by making “sensible spending cuts,” reversing Tory cuts to the top rate of tax and raising wages.

But Ms Lucas slammed him for supporting a charter that includes plans for cuts that the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned would reduce public spending to 1930s levels.

She tabled an amendment rejecting the charter “on the grounds that the government’s austerity agenda is economically illiterate.”

In an intervention, she said: “With the feeble and inconsistent opposition coming from the Labour front bench, there is a very good reason for the SNP, Green Party and Plaid to be seen as the real opposition on this issue.

“Because we are clear and consistent: austerity is not working.”

Ms Lucas’s amendment called for public-sector investment in housing and energy projects to create jobs, raise tax receipts and boost private-sector spending.

Her alternative won popular support, including on Twitter where the text of her motion was shared more than 370 times before the debate had ended.

She told the Star: “Most MPs have succumbed to quietly toeing the line that it’s somehow unavoidable. 

“But there are viable, common-sense alternatives to austerity.”

Despite the criticism, Mr Balls said the Tories’ budget charter trap for Labour had “backfired.”

He  highlighted how even the Taxpayers’ Alliance called the charter a “political gimmick” which only highlighted how Mr Osborne has missed his own deficit reduction target.