Nonsense. Are you being purposely obtuse? He said confidence is the key factor today. Any results of changes in that confidence (which, by the way, is impacted by a multitude of additional factors beyond spending levels) won't actually be felt for an extended period of time. For example, capital investment decisions take at least a year or two before they are really felt.
This is truly bizarre self delusion. I am unaware of any credible source that interprets his statements in that way. Can you provide one? Not to mention the fact that this quote came from 2010, nearly 2 years ago, and things have become dramatically worse in that time. Even by your standard he was horribly wrong. There is no evidence whatsoever that he was attempting to state that austerity measures would lead to economic contraction for several years, followed by better expansion in the long term.
For starters, you're incorrectly assuming any of the economies do poorly because of austerity. They are doing poorly for a variety of factors, austerity is a mechanism to correct for prior mismanagement. Second, if you'd like to look, the GBP has also been climbing against the USD and other currencies this year, the market is showing confidence in the GBP even though it's in a double dip recession.
No, basically all economic evidence points to decreases in public sector spending as a major driving force in economic contraction. This really isn't open for debate. Furthermore, a number of these countries undertaking austerity measures were not poorly managed in the past. As I have already used as an example, Spain had a budget surplus and a debt/GDP ratio of ~26% before the crisis. That is not 'mismanagement' by any reasonable definition.
Don't think I didn't catch your shift however. Your original argument was that the UK being viewed as a better investment opportunity than continental Europe was due to austerity measures. When you were reminded that Europe was also undertaking these, you suddenly tried to shift to exchange rates. Sorry, that's not how it works.