I’d keep cutting like Tories, says Ed Miliband

A LABOUR government would continue to make cuts if it wins the next general election, Ed Miliband has insisted, as he sought to overcome growing doubts over his leadership qualities by acknowledging that his party could not spend its way back to power.

On a day when he was forced to laugh off suggestions that his physical appearance and mannerisms were a “handicap” to becoming prime minister, the party leader used a speech to warn that many cuts ordered by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition could not be reversed by a future Labour government. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls later confirmed that cutbacks to the budgets of police, schools and defence would all have gone ahead under Labour, to cope with Britain’s yawning budget deficit.

But Tory critics last night insisted that neither man had yet grasped the depth of the crisis facing the country, saying they continued to back the spending of the Brown-Blair era.

In a well-trailed speech in London’s Oxo Tower, Mr Miliband once again declared that period over. “Next time we come back to power, it will be different. We will be handed a deficit,” he said. “So, we must rethink how we achieve fairness for Britain in a time when there is less money to spend.”

Earlier, during a radio interview, Mr Miliband brushed aside criticism of his leadership by his former adviser, Lord Glasman, who said it was “all crap”. Mr Miliband said: “It is what happens. You get noises off. I don’t agree with him when he says it is all crap.”

In the same interview, Mr Miliband was likened to Robin Cook, the late Labour cabinet minister, who once said he was “too ugly” to run for party leader. Asked whether he too was “handicapped” by “the way you perform, the way you appear”, Mr Miliband replied: “I don’t accept that.”

On the substance, he said Labour would not reverse reductions in the winter fuel allowance if it was returned to office. The payments have been reduced from £250 to £200 for the over-60s and from £400 to £300 for the over-80s this year.

And a plan to reduce annual tuition fees for English students from £9,000 to £6,000 would mean cancelling a corporation tax cut, he added.

Mr Balls later went further, saying that with the deficit likely to continue beyond 2015, belt-tightening would have to continue well into a future Labour term in office.

“There is going to have to be cuts, there is going to have to be difficult decisions. We would have to have cuts in police, we would have to have cuts in the schools budget, we would have to have cuts in the defence budget,” he said.

The theme of the speech comes after lengthy debate within Labour’s shadow cabinet, and amid evidence that the party has still to convince voters that it can be trusted with the economy after the economic crash.

Shadow ministers believe the party needs to show how it can pursue core aims without getting the country further into debt. Mr Miliband also said he wanted to take on “vested interests”, such as energy and rail firms, which were not offering consumers the best deal.

He said a future Labour government may compel energy companies to give the over-75s the lowest tariffs on the market.

Conservative Party deputy chairman Michael Fallon said: “If he seriously accepts there’s less money to spend, he would stop making billions of new unfunded spending promises and instead tell us what Labour would cut. Instead, Ed Miliband has given us another relaunch, but still no credibility.”