Throughout the election campaign, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable agreed with Labour – that to impose immediate cuts now would be a very big mistake. However, since then something, somewhere seems to have changed. When the Tories announced their £6.2bn of cuts to public spending this year, the Lib Dems were suddenly ardent supporters. The idea that cutting too soon would risk our fragile economic recovery had become yesterday's news. Instead, there was grave concern that if we didn't start cutting today, we would be tomorrow's Greece.

In reality, the "Greek defence" just doesn't stack up. I am not in any doubt that the budget deficit needs to be reduced, and that it is imperative that a coherent plan is put in place for doing so. This inevitably involved cuts. But to claim that events in Greece justify, or necessitate, immediate and harsh cuts – the likes of which we are seeing from the coalition government now – is plain and simple scaremongering.

The UK has less debt than Greece, has a stronger economy and as a result is not regarded by financial markets in the way Greece is. With the right economic policies, Britain's economy could grow strongly in the next few years. We are different from Greece in three key areas: the sustainability of our fiscal position, our policy flexibility and the origins of the debt crisis. Taking each of these in turn, it is possible to dispel the Greek myths the coalition uses for its hasty and unfair cuts.

First, from the point of view of the sustainability of our fiscal position, a nation's solvency critically depends on the amount of its outstanding debts; this is common sense. And as a percentage of GDP, national debt in the UK in 2009 was 72% while in Greece it was 119%. In other words, the amount of debt the UK bears in relation to the size of its economy is simply much smaller in the UK than Greece. Of course, this fact alone does not give a complete picture, as it is the budget deficit that gives us the all important information as to which direction the national debt is travelling. But there is no getting away from the fact that the UK is a long way off being close to Greece in terms of its national debt.

On top of a smaller debt burden, the UK is also much better placed to finance its borrowing. That's because not only does Greece have a higher level of debt, but it has more pressure to continually refinance that debt. The Financial Times puts the average UK debt maturity at 13.5 years, which compares with 7.9 years for Greece, 6.4 years for Spain, and 5.4 years for Ireland. A March 2010 Financial Times article noted that "the UK is a stark outlier: the average maturity of the gilt market is currently 14 years, longer than almost anywhere else in the world."

Further, UK debt is easier to finance because a large proportion, indeed the majority, is held and bought domestically, by pension funds and the like. In contrast, Greece has to find foreign buyers for the majority of its debt held – a position that inherently makes the country more at the whim of the global markets. Also, the UK current account deficit is small as a percentage of GDP (around 2%), while that for Greece exceeds 10%. So the overall external financing pressure on Greece is much greater.

Second, from a flexibility of policy response point of view, unlike Greece, we have control of our own financial affairs, with our own currency and a central bank that can set interest rates in the interests of the domestic economy. Over the last few years, the pound has depreciated by nearly 25%, making our exports more competitive and offsetting some of the effects of the recession. And the Bank of England has cut interest rates to 0.5% and added a further £200bn into the economy through quantitative easing. Quite simply, Greece has not had – and does not have – these advantages.

We are also at a relative advantage to other eurozone countries, too. Some, like Spain and Ireland have been adversely affected throughout the recession by the ECB's hawkish stance on inflation.

But the ability of Greece to reduce its large deficit is compounded by a predicted, continuing recession. Compare this to the UK, where we are forecast by the OECD to experience growth of 1.3% and 2.5% in 2010 and 2011 respectively. In Greece, the figures are -3.7% and -2.5%. The implication, of course, being that while the UK's deficit will start to fall as a result of increased tax revenues and reduced benefit expenditure as the economy expands, in Greece, the debt crisis is only set to deepen.

More generally, Greece also has less discretion over its ability to raise tax revenues. With a low level of tax compliance, raising tax rates has a proportionately low effect on actual revenues. The UK does have some problems with tax avoidance and evasion, and the cuts to HMRC staffing are likely to make compliance worse, but we are in nowhere near as bad a situation as Greece.

Third, and finally, it is important to remember two characteristics of the debt that are in stark contrast to the UK. The problem of debt in Greece is long-standing. Unlike in other countries, including the UK, the credit crisis may have been the final straw, but it was certainly not the cause of the debt crisis in Greece. With different underlying causes of the problem, it would be naive to assume that the treatment – or outcome – should be the same. As if this is not enough, the UK has not once defaulted on its debt – unlike Greece, who has defaulted five times over the last 200 years.

It's for these reasons that the cost of borrowing in the UK is cheaper than in Greece. The UK can borrow at around 3.5%; Greece is facing commercial borrowing rates of over 9%.

None of this is to say we do not have very real problems that need addressing. And the UK needs a clear, credible plan to reduce the deficit over the medium term. But it should be one that does not imperil the recovery now, for that would be shortsighted and counterproductive. Of course, opinion is clearly changing in the eurozone and we are now seeing the return of austerity policies there. Indeed, the Tories can legitimately claim that they are part of the European mainstream now, but these austerity policies in the eurozone are misconceived, and we must not react in a panic and make the same mistakes.

Countries such as Greece are a warning about the consequences of letting a debt problem build up over time and allowing structural problems to develop in an economy. But they tell us little about how we should steer the economy to avoid a return to recession. Nothing that took place in Greece during the last few weeks should mean we need to take £6bn out of the economy right now – which, just as Labour and the Liberal Democrats argued throughout the election campaign, is risking the economic recovery. To claim otherwise is an excuse for making cuts that the Conservatives always wanted to pursue.