Ed Balls was accused of having ‘lost his marbles’ yesterday after painting an ‘apocalyptic’ picture of Britain under another five years of Conservative government. The Shadow Chancellor launched a Labour dossier suggesting three Government departments – the Foreign Office, Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Transport – would ‘disappear’ if the Tories kept cutting spending at the current rate. Later however, Mr Balls was forced to admit that even he did not believe the Foreign Office would be abolished. Scroll down for video . Shadow chancellor Ed Balls (pictured at a conference yesterday) has been accused of having ‘lost his marbles’ after painting an ‘apocalyptic’ picture of Britain under another five years of a Tory government . The Tories said their plan to eliminate the deficit was necessary and accused Mr Balls of ‘absurd scaremongering’. The 31-page Labour document painted a bleak picture of life under a Conservative ‘35 per cent state’, a reference to plans to reduce public spending as a proportion of GDP. It suggested police cuts would fuel crime, a third of elderly people who receive state-funded social care would have it stopped and the NHS ‘as we know it’ would cease to exist. George Osborne’s ‘1930s plans’ would also mean the Army being reduced to its smallest size since Cromwell, the dossier suggested. Mr Balls insisted a Conservative Government would have to make £70billion of spending cuts to eliminate the budget deficit by 2017/18. He suggested avoiding some of the ‘extreme cuts’ outlined in the document would be possible only by raising VAT, slashing the NHS budget or imposing charges for healthcare. But he declined to set out how much spending Labour would cut if it regains office, or where the axe would fall. Asked if he ‘seriously believed that the Conservatives will close down the Foreign Office or close down the Department for Transport or close down the Department for Work and Pensions’, Mr Balls said: ‘No I don’t think that.’ When asked why such scenarios were included in the dossier, he said: ‘Because what the document says is if the Government was to do those spending cuts, which are bigger in the next parliament than in this parliament, on the same basis as in this parliament, that would mean closing the Foreign Office and the DWP. We don’t think they’ll do that.’ Public spending as a share of the entire economy will fall to just 35.2 per cent by 2018-19, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecasts of spending cuts . The Tories accused Ed Balls (pictured above) of ‘absurd scaremongering’ after he launched a Labour dossier which suggested three Government departments could disappear under the a Conservative government . Even the BBC’s assistant political editor Norman Smith described the scenario as ‘an apocalypse’. A Labour aide added that the document had set out an ‘implausible scenario’ to illustrate the difficulty of the Tories achieving their deficit reduction plan. Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps said the analysis was ‘nonsense’. He said his party had pledged to cut £30billion in the next parliament – £13billion from departmental budgets, £12billion from welfare and £5billion from closing tax loopholes. It sounds like the politics of the playground. Former Labour star James Purnell claims he and Ed Miliband aren’t friends any more. The ex-culture minister, now the BBC’s strategy chief, gave an interview saying he had always been close to Mr Miliband. But he later called the London Evening Standard journalist to insist: ‘When I said I was friends with Ed, that’s not completely right. I’m not friends with Ed any more.’ The exchange simultaneously raises questions about the BBC’s left wing ties and sheds light on insecurity among its upper ranks. ‘I think Balls has lost his marbles on this,’ he said. ‘He is making up a set of figures today and I think fairly ludicrously already having to back track from his speech in which he claimed the next Conservative government would be closing down major government departments. ‘That’s a sign of how chaotic Labour is.’ Mr Balls insisted that to achieve a budget surplus by the end of the next parliament, Mr Osborne would have to deliver ‘colossal cuts’ to public spending. ‘An unprecedented £70billion of spending cuts would be deeply destructive and close to impossible, even for this Chancellor,’ he said. ‘So George Osborne must surely have an alternative plan in his back pocket. These would lead to the smallest police force since comparable records began, the smallest Army since Cromwell, and over a third of older people receiving social care losing their entitlement to it. ‘There is a real risk that the Chancellor will be forced to break his promise to ring-fence the NHS.’ Labour has committed to only tiny spending cuts such as removing the winter fuel allowance from the richest pensioners. Treasury minister David Gauke said yesterday: ‘Ed Balls has today confirmed Labour’s policy of billions of pounds of tax rises, more borrowing and more debt.’ Labour's doom-laden dossier says the Tories’ ‘extreme plans’ would mean £70billion in cuts and have a ‘crushing impact’ on public services. James Chapman gives his verdict. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls . END OF THE NHS . CLAIM: Labour said Tory plans are ‘so extreme as to make them close to impossible to deliver while maintaining current projections for areas such as the NHS... a 35 per cent state is not compatible with an NHS as we know it. If the Tories were to abandon the ring-fence, this could lead to £10billion being cut from the NHS budget.’ REALITY: The Conservative-led Coalition has repeatedly protected NHS spending from cuts – despite complaints that this has meant more painful reductions elsewhere – and repeated a pledge to ensure real-terms increases until 2020. Elsewhere in the world, the worst health cuts have come in countries that failed to control public spending – such as Portugal, Greece and Italy. FOREIGN OFFICE CLOSED . CLAIM: If cuts fell on government departments on the same basis as they did in this parliament, three of them – the Foreign Office, Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Transport – would ‘cease to exist’. REALITY: Even Ed Balls admitted this scenario was absurd. Questioned afterwards, he said: ‘I don’t think they’re going to abolish the Foreign Office ... I don’t think they’re going to abolish the Department for Transport.’ POLICE CUT TO 1970S LEVELS . CLAIM: In the next parliament, Mr Balls said Tory plans ‘would be equivalent to 29,900 police officers lost and 6,700 PCSOs [police community support officers] lost’. This would take the overall numbers of police on the streets well below 100,000 and well below the levels of the late 1970s. REALITY: Crime is the best illustration of the Conservative mantra that it is possible to do ‘more for less in public services’. Despite Labour’s warning in 2010 that Home Secretary Theresa May was taking ‘huge risks with the public’s safety’ by cutting police funding, crime is down by more than a fifth. SMALLEST ARMY IN 350 YEARS . CLAIM: Labour suggested Tory plans would mean ‘the smallest Army since Cromwell’. There would be 34,500 fewer soldiers and 60,800 fewer personnel, which would ‘fundamentally impact on the UK’s ability to project power around the world at a time when we face multiple threats’. REALITY: Like Labour, the Tories have not guaranteed they will maintain defence spending at the Nato target of 2 per cent of national income, currently met by the UK and only four other Nato countries. But David Cameron has repeatedly pledged the Army will face no further cuts in manpower. He told the Commons in January: ‘As long as I am Prime Minister, the regular Army will stay at its current size.’ ELDERLY DENIED SOCIAL CARE . CLAIM: Labour says it is ‘safe to assume’ that ‘even deeper’ cuts would ‘have to be delivered through further restrictions on eligibility’. It forecasts that the number of older people receiving state-funded social care would fall by 260,000 – a third of the current total. The dossier says services would be withdrawn from people ‘who might struggle with daily living activities such as getting washed or dressed, or making a meal’. REALITY: At the cost of £1.6billion a year to the taxpayer, the Coalition is introducing a cap of £72,000 on the amount people have to contribute towards their own care, and introduced the first national guidelines on who should qualify for free care. Labour has suggested there will be no extra money for social care provided by local authorities under its plans. Ed Balls told the BBC in January: ‘There will be no additional funding for local government unless we can find money from somewhere else, but we have not been able to do that in the case of local government.’
Shadow chancellor says next four years of cuts will be worse than last five . Ed Balls accused of 'losing his marbles' after painting ‘apocalyptic’ picture . Cuts will be 'the most extreme in post-war history', he warned in a speech . Tories said plan to eliminate deficit was necessary and accused Mr Balls of ‘absurd scaremongering’ after his speech on UK under Tory government .