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Tories take their tax-cutting show on the road as Labour hits back
Joe Murphy, Political Editor06.01.09
DAVID Cameron sent his shadow cabinet on a tour of Britain to sell his tax-cutting pledges today amid Labour claims they would mean deep cutbacks in counter terrorism, housing and transport.
The Conservative leader beat Gordon Brown onto the campaign trail by meeting business leaders and voters in Manchester for a one-day series of "Get Britain Working" forums.
A dozen members of Mr Cameron's frontbench team travelled to other major cities, including shadow chancellor George Osborne in Cardiff, work and pensions spokesman Chris Grayling in Edinburgh and shadow foreign secretary William Hague in Tyneside.
The Prime Minister will embark on a longer three-day tour of the regions tomorrow, including holding a full Cabinet meeting in Liverpool, aiming to show the country he is heeding their concerns about the recession.
The political battle over the economy heated up after Mr Cameron pledged to give away £4.1billion in tax breaks to 20 million savers and pensioners yesterday. He would abolish tax on savings interest for most people and give pensioners an extra £2,000 personal allowance.
But Labour launched a counter-attack today saying the Tory leader's commitment to fund the giveaway by a one per cent curb in the growth of public spending would hit critical services.
It issued an analysis claiming that the slower spending rise would mean £800million less for housing; £240million less funding for local councils; £160million taken out of planned spending on police and counter-terrorism; over £600million less for training, higher education and science; over £800million less for transport, and £300million less for children's services such as the Sure Start centres.
Treasury Minister Yvette Cooper said: "What David Cameron is proposing is spending cuts during a recession. This means cuts in support for the unemployed to get back to work, cuts in support for training and apprenticeships, cuts in support for business, or housing, transport, regeneration. I think it's economic madness, and no other major government in the world is considering this, quite the reverse".
However, senior Tories believe they have changed the political battlelines by challenging Mr Brown's strategy of borrowing and spending to try to inflate the economy during the recession.
Downing Street was quick to counter his pledge to help savers, whose incomes have plummeted as interest rates have come down, by hinting at measures in the spring Budget.
Reader views (9)
Gordon the Gopher, he'll go for this and go for that, has his army of Brown nosers screeming cuts!! Good old Gordon has already identified five million pounds of savings, (I would call it waste#, all Cameron is doing is bringing it forward. Gordon can do that with spending, so why can Cameron not do it with savings. Pensioners rely on the interest to suplement their income which was partly stolen from them by Gord's £5 billion grab from pensions. Give them the interest back, they have to spend it, they need to survive, #Cold weather and all# after all they are not saving it for their old age. To benefit from Gordons generous 2.2p saving on Vat you have to spend money. No spend no gain.
Gordon seems to be like most economists, they know 9 gallon of beer nothing about the real world. Contrast this spend to the billions this government has given to#wasted on) their friends to roll out NHS computers, Defence projects. All who seem to lose data and screw up, but are repeatedly offered new contracts to lose data and screw up again,and again, and again...... Just think how much of a stimulus the economy could have been given if this had been spent reasonably, and not given to armies of already rich consultants to make them even richer. To say Cameron's lot are the do nothing party is true. They are not in power, ipso facto they can't do anything. When they suggest something Gordon either nicks it or decries it. Empty vessels???
N.B. I believe a nine gallon barrel is a firkin
- Alan, carlisle uk
the first cut in spending should be this fat Labour regime of clowns and liars.
- Jamal Akhbar, Edinburgh
Gordon Brown is scheduled to make a speech later today on current extreme weather conditions. He'll say that "Responsibility for the extreme cold spell began in the USA" and that he's "doing everything he can" to make sure that the weather improves and that he "fully expects temperatures to recover by the middle of 2009"!!!!
- Malcolm, London
Gordon Brown is 'aiming to show the country he is heeding their concerns about the recession'. How does he go about doing that? By 'holding a full Cabinet meeting in Liverpool'! Just how much of taxpayers' money does it cost to do that?
Mystic Meg' Cooper claims to know what cuts a Conservative government would make. Maybe she been using her crystal 'Balls'! She should know that Gordon's mini-me is useless too.
- Ian, Edinburgh
"deep cutbacks in counter terrorism, housing and transport"
If the UK had a decent foreign policy and hadn't followed the US blindly into two wars, we wouldn't need to spend so much money on counter terrorism; the fall in house prices means that government needn't spend so much on housing; Darling is constantly increasing driving taxes, so that would fund any transport projects, not that Labour have exactly provided us with the world-class transport system that was promised in 1997, despite strong-arming £550bn out of motorists.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
About time !! The silence majority who have been funding the economy have been ignored todate, Labour have a built-in hate of savers and have always put the obligatory stealth taxes in place since they have been in goverment,you cannot have the "boom" before the "bust" if you have people being prudent with their own financial affairs.
Labour will always find money when they want to spend.
- Colin Petrie, Billericay
Yvette Cooper, and what experience has she got. What does she know about the real world when she and her husband has been bleeding the tax payers dry with their expense claims.
If they were in the private sector without the trough, they'll soon be screaming a different note.
- Alec, West London
Being a retired Uk citizen living in France now,I do wish that Gordon Brown would stop staying that all of the problems in the UK are caused by the GLOBAL ecomony turning sour.Did he not preside for 10 years as Chancellor and cause the problems we are now suffering.
He should be a retired pensioner,having been frugal most of ones life to save and have private pension money coming in,only to see the decimation of the pension industry under his stewardship,and the crashing of interest rates to try to resolve the problem he had caused,again penalising the pensioners trying to eek out an existance,and I repeat EXISTANCE,not a life,on ever disappearing returns on our savings,and lastly living in the Eurozone,seeing the collapse of sterling to the value of a third world country,again cutting our income over one year by a staggering 30 per cent,and still be are not a burden on him,by way of claiming any benefits from his now Chancellor,does he really think that 60 pound makes any difference,and that the deduction of 2.5 per cent on VAT really made any difference.
Come on Gordon,get your head out of the sand,and try and see just what your failed policies are doing to all of us... CALL AN ELECTION,we can then give your our verdict.
- Paul Akers, Le Loroux France
All David Cameron can do is talk about what he might do in 12 months time IF he wins the election, thing move so fast, he will bring out a load of other priorities before then.
WC
- W Churchill, Herefordshire
