Topic: | Re:Conservative Party majority achieved | |
Posted by: | John Whitworth | |
Date/Time: | 12/05/15 11:32:00 |
"According to a political commentator on LBC(name forgotten already) this morning. David Milliband's first action as leader (before he was back stabbed by the odious Millibean Minor) was in his acceptance speech to apologise for the overspending and that fact that one pound in every three had been borrowed." This struck me as quite an extraordinary claim. It is also very specific. Is it true? Did David Miliband really intend to make such an apology? It's very easy to check, so I did. I have read the whole of the final draft of the acceptance speech and can find nothing resembling the above claim. In fact, in common with his brother, he defends Labour's public spending as follows: "Step two is to explain that it was not immoral to incur the vast bulk of the deficit to prevent recession turning into Depression; it was necessary; to protect your savings and rescue the economy. And when the history books are written people will admit Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling did lead the world. Step three is to defend Alistair's decision to cut the deficit in half in four years. We need to grow the economy, raise taxes in a fair way and reduce spending. His plan was working. That's why the economy grew in the first half of this year. Fewer unemployed, lower than expected borrowing." Source: The David Miliband speech that never was - in full Doesn't look like an apology to me, and no mention of 'one pound in every three' in sight. |