Business week in pictures

Britain's leading experts on tax and spending have strongly challenged George Osborne's claims to have delivered a 'tough but fair' budget, concluding that the measures in the emergency package would hit the poor harder than the rich. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor and Nick Clegg could only assert that the better off were the big losers from the austerity move by including reforms announced by Labour, such as the changes to pension contributions
Photograph: David Moir/Reuters

But the chancellor won plaudits from business leaders and financial markets for promising ambitious spending cuts and tax rises that he said would transform the country's deficit to a surplus in five years. Plans to squeeze the public sector with £30bn of spending and welfare cuts combined with £10bn of tax rises were the centrepiece of a budget that signalled a massive £90bn of annual savings up to 2014-15
Photograph: Matt Writtle for the Guardian

Ambulances at the new Accident and Emergency department of the Queen Elizabeth super hospital in Birmingham. Key measures in the budget include a VAT rise from 17.5% to 20% next January, higher capital gains tax, a levy on banks, a two-year public sector pay freeze and less generous benefits. Osborne warned that ring-fencing the NHS and international development meant non-protected departments would face average real cuts of 25% but that some clemency would be shown to education and defence. Child benefit will be frozen, and the government will eventually save almost £6bn a year by linking all state benefits other than pensions to the slower-growing consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index. The chancellor sought to soften the blow from the toughest budget in modern times by raising personal income tax allowances by £1,000 and linking pensions to earnings
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The hand of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne carrying the famous old ministerial red box as he leaves 11 Downing Street. The Guardian's economics editor Larry Elliott argued that George Osborne's budget was brutal and its success rests on an enfeebled and unbalanced economy
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

Economists played down the chances that the Bank of England would raise borrowing costs before the end of the year after the emergence of a surprise split on its rate-setting committee. Andrew Sentance broke ranks with his seven other colleagues at this month's monetary policy committee meeting to vote for a rate rise to 0.75% against a backdrop of above-target inflation. Other members, however, thought the risks regarding price pressures and growth had not changed enough to warrant raising rates from their record low so soon
Photograph: David Levene

A glove dripping with thick crude oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Bay Jimmy marsh section of Barataria Bay near Port Sulpher, Louisiana. BP has reinstalled an oil-siphoning cap on its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico and has resumed collecting crude after an accident led to oil flowing unhindered into the ocean for several hours. The political risks from the disaster were underscored by a poll showing Barack Obama's job performance rating has dropped to the lowest level of his presidency. The Obama administration is appealing a court ruling blocking a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling
Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

Earlier in the week, anti-BP protesters from Greenpeace disrupted a speech by the company's chief of staff, Steve Westwell, at a major oil conference in London, urging the company to change its ways following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Westwell was delivering the speech in place of the oil giant's beleaguered chief executive, Tony Hayward, who cancelled what would have been his first public appearance in the UK since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began
Photograph: GreenpeaceUK/YouTube

Arrivals at the Future summit, a meeting of representatives of the government, trade unions and industry, at Schloss Meseberg, Germany. George Soros, the billionaire financier who famously 'broke' the pound, has warned that German economic policy threatens to tear the eurozone apart, and said he could not rule out a collapse of the euro. As the credit outlook of southern European high-deficit countries worsened, Soros said Berlin needed to switch its economic policy from deep austerity measures to a more pro-growth agenda. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans this month for €80bn (£66bn) in budget cuts
Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

A US judge scolded the Barclays president Bob Diamond for providing 'evasive' answers under oath as he struggled to fend off accusations that the British bank ripped off the bankrupt Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers to the tune of $11bn (£7.5bn). Diamond took the witness stand at a federal court in Manhattan where he faced four hours of hostile examination by Lehman lawyers who claim Barclays negotiated a secret windfall when it bought the US brokerage arm of Lehman for a headline price of $1.75bn after the firm's collapse in 2008
Photograph: Keith Bedford/Reuters

After months of dealing with volcanic ash cloud disruption, British airlines have been dealt another blow: they are some of the worst carriers in the world, according to a customer survey from the consumer magazine, Which? While Swiss Airlines came top of the satisfaction list for passengers on short haul flights, the eight worst-rated carriers were all British, apart from Irish airline Ryanair. Thomas Cook Airlines came bottom of the short haul table, deemed worst for leg room; while Ryanair was rated poorly for its checked baggage allowance. Jet2.com, Easyjet, BMI Baby, Thomson Airways and Monarch Airlines were all poorly rated
Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA