CONSERVATIVE PRIME minister David Cameron has roundly attacked the Labour Party for putting the United Kingdom into “an appalling mess”, leaving the Conservative/Liberal Democrat alliance to deal with a deficit that is worse than that facing Greece and having to impose billions of pounds of spending cuts over the next few years to reform the country’s troubled finances.
Speaking after Queen Elizabeth had outlined the new government’s legislative priorities over the next 18 months, Mr Cameron defended the decision to impose £6 billion of spending cuts, telling former Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett, who had criticised the abolition of state-funded £250 trust funds for children: “You broke the nation so badly that it’s schemes like this that can’t be continued with.”
Naming Afghanistan as the top international priority, Mr Cameron, said: “This is a vital year for Afghanistan’s future. We have had a troop surge in southern Afghanistan; there are now about 44,000 American forces fighting alongside around 9,000 British soldiers. What we need now is a political surge with more effective and accountable government, a reformed Afghan police force and proper reconciliation at the centre. This government will play a leading role in helping to bring that about.”
However, the prime minister made clear that the UK will press for tougher sanctions against Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, despite an agreement brokered by Brazil last week: “For the last six years we have pursued a twin-track policy offering engagement but being prepared to apply pressure. I believe it is time to ratchet up that pressure and the timetable is short. This government has a clear objective to ensure stronger UN and EU sanctions against Iran.”
The coalition will move today to offer freedom to large numbers of schools to escape local government control, while the new work and pensions secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith is also to outline reforms to the welfare system, which will see claimants lose all or part of their benefits if they refuse to take up work offered to them.
Ironically, the government announced its plans “to restore freedoms and civil liberties” through curbs on the DNA database, the rights to peaceful protest and the use of CCTV just as an anti-war protester was arrested outside Westminster, where he has stood for eight years.
Brian Haw was handcuffed at 8am as police officers with sniffer dogs searched a tented village which has grown up on Parliament Square across the road from the House of Commons, following demands by the Mayor of London, Conservative Boris Johnson, who has complained about “the mess and chaos” created by the encampment, which has seen part of the green dug for a compost toilet.
Meanwhile, Mr Cameron ridiculed Labour objections to plans to set a 55 per cent threshold for the calling of an election, saying that they had backed a 66 per cent threshold before the Scottish parliament could be dissolved. Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman said the plan, along with a five-year term for parliament, is “completely wrong”, while Labour also criticised the government’s intention to create new peers for the House of Lords.
The detail of the 55 per cent legislation is still being worked on, though the passage of a no-confidence motion against the government would still mean that efforts would have to be made to form an alternative government. Conservative cabinet office minister Mark Harper said: “There are no changes at all to the no-confidence proposals, a government could still be defeated by 50 per cent plus one. That government would have then to resign, you just wouldn’t automatically get — indeed you don’t now — automatically get a dissolution.
“Her majesty the queen would see if there was an alternative government that could be formed and that’s actually what happens now.
“What we’re doing is removing the prime minister’s power to kick out parliament and have another election — he’s giving up power, not taking it.”