General Election 2015: Ed Miliband to accuse David Cameron of 'grand deception' over 'extreme spending cuts'
The Labour leader will claim a Tory government would bring 'hard times'
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Your support makes all the difference.Ed Miliband will accuse David Cameron of planning a “grand deception” on the voters because he intends to make the biggest spending cuts in the developed world after the election.
The Labour leader will claim that a Conservative government would not mean “the good life” as Mr Cameron claims but “hard times” during three years of “extreme spending cuts.” The economy is about to take centre stage in the election campaign as the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies publishes its analysis of the parties’ tax and spending plans.
The Tories, who will reject Labour’s charge, seized on a joke by Alex Salmond, the former Scottish National Party leader, that he will write Labour’s first Budget. Mr Cameron tweeted footage of Mr Salmond’s remarks to SNP supporters, but Mr Salmond said the Prime Minister should “get a sense of humour”.
In an email to Tory supporters, Mr Cameron will warn that there are only 14 days to stop “the economic chaos of an Ed Miliband-SNP nightmare.” He will say: “We’ve learned that Ed Miliband would spend, tax and borrow more than anyone feared – and that would hit your family hard…. The SNP would hold Miliband to ransom – and have the rest of Britain over a barrel.”
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Labour’s claims about the Tories’ planned cuts have been echoed the Liberal Democrats, who have challenged Mr Cameron’s claim that the spending reductions would be “the equivalent of a normal household saving just £1 a year in every £100 it spends”. Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Treasury Secretary, has calculated that the Tories’ would need about £60bn of cuts to fund their spending plans – twice the amount they admit. That would take £6 out of every £100 the government spends for three years - more than the UK’s defence and police budgets combined.
Speaking in Nuneaton, Mr Miliband will cite figures from the International Monetary Fund showing that Britain faces the deepest spending cuts of any advanced country over the three years if the Tories are in power. He will dispute Mr Cameron’s claim that the worst of the cuts have already been made and claim that the Tories’ plans would put public services at risk.
The Labour leader will claim: “The Tories are committed to the most extreme spending plans of any political party in generations.” He will add: “It is a plan so extreme that it wouldn’t mean three years of the good life, it would mean three years of hard times. Maybe not for some of the rich and powerful, who have done so well with the last five years of the Tories. But it would mean hard times for the working families of Britain, who put in the hours, pay their taxes and play their part.”
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