Labour will keep austerity, says Miliband

[Vague_Boy]

For those who think that austerity (such as it is) is just an ideological cudgel with which the Tories have chosen to beat the poor, Ed Milliband has some bad news for you:

 

Ed Miliband would “cut spending” if he wins the next election and he has issued a stark warning describing continued austerity under a Labour government.

 

The Labour leader last night said it was now “more necessary to get every pound of value out of services” as he delivered the Hugo Young lecture in London – an annual talk in memory of the former political writer.

 

Labour would do “things in a new way” as part of a shake-up of the way public services are run if the party wins next year’s General Election, Mr Miliband said. However, he suggested that his party would not radically depart from the Tory-led government’s austerity programme that has seen billions of pounds of cuts, as well as restrictions on public sector pay.

 

Mr Miliband talked about the “massive fiscal challenges” a Labour government would face in managing the UK’s finances and taking action to reduce the national deficit.

 

LINK

 

"would not radically depart from the Tory-led government’s austerity programme".

 

Yes guys, I'm afraid the debt problem is very, very real.

 

And for those whose memories can't quite stretch back further than April 2010 (really chaps, seek medical advice), the need for cuts did predate the current government:

 

 

Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher

 

Thinktank warns of 'two parliaments of pain' with spending slashed by 25% to repair black hole in finances

 

Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.

 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said hefty tax rises and Whitehall spending cuts of 25% were in prospect during the six-year squeeze lasting until 2017 that would follow the chancellor's "treading water" budget yesterday.

 

Asked by the BBC tonight how his plans compared with Thatcher's attempts to slim the size of the state, Darling replied: "They will be deeper and tougher – where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

 

LINK

 

That's from 25 March 2010, the run up to the last General election when all three major parties were vying with each other to be the biggest and the baddest at cutting spending.

 

Sadly to some on here, with their memory problems, this will seem like new information.

 

Unless perchance all they see of the paragraphs above are large blank spaces between my own comments. Which, implausible as it seems, might explain some of the more egregiously stupid comments on here regarding the nation's finances.

 

Eyesight problems as well. Deary, deary me.

[Mecky]

Nice troll

[taxman]

Odd how every Tory and Lib Dem interviewed warns that Labour want to increase public spending.

 

Which is correct?

[Manlinose]

of course labour want to increase public spending - that is their whole ethos

 

the better parts of the labour party leadership know the difference between wanting to and being able to afford to

 

it also depends how you define public spending - should expenditure on capital investment in infrastructure be classed the same as day to day running costs?

[Bob England]

of course labour want to increase public spending - that is their whole ethos

 

the better parts of the labour party leadership know the difference between wanting to and being able to afford to

 

it also depends how you define public spending - should expenditure on capital investment in infrastructure be classed the same as day to day running costs?

 

I am starting to believe that the whole way we govern this country is due an overhaul.

 

We elect a party in for a period of 4/5 years, they immediately set out to change the way the previous party has done things and after about 2 and a half years start the campaign for the next election.

 

That's why our infrastructure is shot, all they do is patch up the existing and give little thought to the new, that's why we are considering HR2 ten years after the French Japanese and others installed it.

 

I think we should consider extending parliaments to 10 years. Shrinking the number of MPs to about 400, making it compulsory that any MP must have served a period of ten years in employment before being considered and double their pay. Then we would get experienced people, with a 10 year guarantee of well paid work.

 

We should also try to introduce a culture of competent cooperative management rather than the yah boo confrontational style that we have now.

[WeX]

of course labour want to increase public spending - that is their whole ethos

 

Buying votes?

[old tup]

How anyone can contemplate electing the Labour party back into power is beyond me is everbody suffering from amnesia?.For over a decade they slowly but surely took us down the toilet,laughing boy Brown mismanaging our finances and standing on budget day lying through his teeth every year!.As for the leader now super nerd Miliband really fills you full of confidence he gives me the impression he couldn,t organise an orgy in a brothel,as bad as things are I would give the Tories one more chance to sort out the mess left by Blairs boys,if they don,t then back heel them but for whom that is the dilemma!

[geared]

I can't keep up with Millibands claims.

 

He's promised to fix energy prices somehow, but at the same time he's going to cut spending???

 

How on earth will he balance the books?

[L00b]

How on earth will he balance the books?

There's just a few of us who have been asking the same question awhile. Join the queue.

[Mecky]

The fact is someone posted this ir similar on here way back when and did Milliband actually say those things or is it that someone just interpretated his words that way?