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George Osborne has warned that to deny the need to cut the deficit would be to "take the British people for fools".
Speaking at Bloomberg's offices in the City of London this afternoon the chancellor attacked the previous Labour government for failing to identify specific cuts they had pledged to make.
"What was their plan to deliver these cuts? Well, I've searched for it and I can tell you - there was no plan. Of that £44bn, not a single penny had been allocated to any significant public spending programme," he said.
"To say we must deal with the deficit, but refuse to say how, is simply taking the British people for fools."
He added that Labour's claim to have abolished boom and bust was "the greatest failure of economic policy-making for more than 30 years".
"Rather than a bolt from the blue, the recession now looks wearily familiar, the bust that followed a boom".
He said that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the economic situation given that employment was growing "at the fastest pace for over a decade".
But he warned that the recovery would be "choppy" and to expect a smoother ride would be "asking too much".
"I'm optimistic that if we stick to the course we have set ourselves on, hold firm to our plans, deal with our debts, start to rebalance our economy and provide the stability Britain has been lacking in recent years we can navigate our way through to calmer waters."
He added: "Britain now has a credible plan to deal with a record deficit and we must stick by it".
And Osborne warned that any "serious" critics of the coalition's plan to tackle the nation's financial troubles needed to present alternative plans.
"Both those who deny the need to cut the deficit and those who refuse to say how to do it are placing themselves outside of the domestic and international debate," he said.
"And in becoming deficit deniers they are saying that they would set the economy on a road to economic ruin."
Osborne received a personal boost today as polling firm Ipsos-MORI found him to be the most popular Conservative chancellor since they began polling in 1976.
But he may be less popular with some of his cabinet colleagues, as a Whitehall official reportedly told the Financial Times that work and pensions secretary Ian Duncan Smith had a "blazing, shouting, grade-A row" with the chancellor over plans to reform the benefits system.
The paper reported today that the Treasury has demanded Duncan Smith find £5 of savings for every £1 he spends to simplify the benefits system.
And it has been suggested Osborne had an acrimonious disagreement with defence secretary Liam Fox over whether the Ministry of Defence or the Treasury should pay for the replacement of Britain's nuclear deterrent.
Nevertheless Osborne insisted that the current departmental spending review was a "genuinely collective effort" around the cabinet table.
In his speech the chancellor said the coalition's plans to cut the deficit will lead to a fairer society.
"We are shaping the economy of the future by promoting a pro-growth agenda," he said.
And he said the government would follow a "ruthless approach" to waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy in government.
"We will tackle soaring welfare bills. And we will refocus public spending in those areas that will make a difference to our long-term economic success," he said.
"It is not about how much the government spends but about what the government actually does with the money."
Osborne's remarks come as shadow chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to implicitly criticise Gordon Brown's premiership, arguing that Labour lost the election because it ignored public concern over the deficit.
Due to speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival this evening, the former chancellor will say that Labour lost its way and got "sidetracked" into a debate of "investment over cuts".
But defending his stewardship of the economy, Darling will insist the previous government handled the financial crisis "with competence, integrity and above all an absolute determination on my part not to put short-term political advantage before the interests of the country and, specifically, of risking a second period of recession".
Brown and his chancellor are believed to have had a difficult relationship, with Darling reportedly having to fight off attempts by Downing Street to remove him from his post.
In an interview in February this year Darling said that No. 10 had unleashed the "forces of hell" against him in 2008 after he said that the economic conditions were "arguably the worst they've been in 60 years".
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