Grommit vows to out tory the tories.....
Ed Miliband vows to wield the axe on public services to balance books
Labour pledges to cut deficit while protecting services
Andrew Grice Author Biography
Politcal Editor
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Ed Miliband will make a pitch for the political centre ground today by pledging to cut the budgets of most Whitehall departments every year until the nation’s books are balanced. In his most crucial economic speech since becoming Labour leader, he will tackle the party’s lack of credibility on the issue by unveiling a “tough but balanced” approach to clearing the deficit by the end of the 2015-20 parliament.
His shift will be welcomed by Blairite MPs, who have been urging him to say more about where Labour would make painful cuts.
Ed Balls, the shadow Chancellor, has written to Shadow Cabinet members ordering them to spell out how they would reduce their department’s spending every year until the deficit has been eliminated. Only the NHS and overseas aid are exempt from the squeeze, but Labour is likely to pledge to ring-fence the education budget before next May’s general election.
Mr Miliband believes that George Osborne left the centre ground open for Labour in last week’s Autumn Statement post-election cuts that would reduce state spending to its lowest level as a share of national income since the 1930s. Speaking in London today, the Labour leader will accuse the Conservatives of being “extreme and ideological, committed to a dramatic shrinking of the state… They are doing it, not because they have to do it, but because they want to.”
He will seek to reassure progressive voters that Labour’s tougher approach to the deficit will not mean copying the Tories. “We will deal with the deficit but we will never return to the 1930s,” he will say, insisting that working people would pay the price of not tackling the deficit.
More total bollox here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-vows-towield-the-axe-on-public-services-9916560.html