Labour, the Party of Tax Cuts?

No, I did not mis-spell my title. There is no missing 'n'. I have just had the pleasure of listening to Ed Miliband on his own rant in Oldham at the by-election. A more delusional man I have scarce seen.

As he, and every member of his forgettable shadow cabinet, has done since their tumbling from power, Red Ed has spluttered forth a load of hypocritical, shallow, meaningless twaddle to a fanfare of publicity. Sounds very much like the unions of whom he is now, one must suppose, spokesman in chief, so deep must he live now in their pockets after they elevated him to the leadership. The ever-neutral mouthpiece of the left, the Beeb, was only too willing to give him full coverage without even a hint of political comment as to any possible departures from the truth.

If anyone has heard a single policy, an actual alternative, some concrete planning of what Labour would do instead of any of the current Government policies, I would love to hear it. Answers on a postcard, email them, send a carrier pigeon. No, thought not. As usual, Ed has stood up and spluttered his way through a vacuous speech which basically says, "they're raising taxes and cutting spending (aside: because as Liam Byrne pointed out, there's no money left), they're mean, we're better".

He had the temerity to suggest that the Coalition now was a Government of broken promises. After 13 years of Labour lies it is genuinely hard, so numerous are they, to recall every single one of their election-winning promises discarded days after victory like a Norwegian Spruce after Christmas. For some of the more recently topical let us go with, "education education education", "no to tuition fees", and "referendum on the Lisbon Treaty". One could go on, but you know them.

Ed then goes on to suggest that the VAT tax rise is "the wrong tax at the wrong time", but do they have an alternative? Of course not. He says all the cuts are wrong. Now who do we think we should listen to on whether the action the Government has taken on the economy is the right action; whether it will save the UK from going the way of Greece and Ireland, of bankrupting everyone? The international money markets who support it, the Bank of England's MPC who support it, the financial data which shows the economy on the mend? Or a Labour Party who bankrupted the nation, who sold our gold at rock bottom, who borrowed to buy votes rather than saved for a surplus during an international economic boom? A tricky choice I know, but somehow 30% of so of voters in this country laughably support the latter.

He says the Government is threatening the future of our children, a man part of the administration who has deserted children in this country. An administration that oversaw a tragic decline in education, in the skills of school leavers, in the standards of state schooling, and an increase in child violence, in and out of school. Oh, and most importantly, essentially mortgaged every man, woman and child in this country to the tune of over £20,000 to pay off their horrible mismanagement of the economy.

I struggle to listen to any of the Opposition's carping without screaming at the television these days, "well what would you do?" But then, as anyone who has had the misfortune to be born before 1997 can attest, we already know having seen 13 long years of it, and the answer is not pretty.