NEWLY ELECTED Labour Party leader Ed Miliband faced a barrage of criticism yesterday from senior Conservative Party figures who will outline a multibillion-pound spending cuts programme later this month. They insisted Mr Miliband must produce a list of cuts that he will support if he is to build credibility with voters.
The co-ordinated attacks upon Mr Miliband on the first day of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham came after early polling figures showed Labour now leading the Conservatives. Nevertheless, prominent Conservatives insist the British public is supportive of the need for action to be taken to curb the £155 billion (€177 billion) annual deficit.
Asking whether Mr Miliband would now say what he supports, foreign secretary William Hague said: "Or will he follow the unions who fixed the election for him, and Ed Balls and Gordon Brown who tutored him, in running away from the biggest problem facing the country and abandoning the centre ground of British politics?"
The challenge to Mr Miliband came as work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, speaking in a radio interview, appeared to endorse means-testing, describing the payment of benefits to people earning £50,000 or more as "completely bonkers". This sparked speculation that middle-class people could lose entitlement to child benefit.
Detailing her own life history as the daughter of impoverished Pakistani immigrants, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative co-chairwoman, taunted the new Labour leader: "Don't you dare say you are a friend of the working classes. Don't you dare say you're a friend of minorities. Don't you dare say you're the friend of people in the north. Because I am all of those things and you are no friend of mine!" she declared, to sustained applause from several thousand delegates.
Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne is due to release the results of the comprehensive spending review in three weeks' time to the House of Commons, which will begin a five-year effort to cut 25 per cent from state spending.
Concerned about the increasingly bleak public narrative about the cuts to come, Prime Minister David Cameron sought yesterday to inject a note of optimism, insisting that the changes would not be as draconian as some expect. "We aren't talking about going back to the level of spending of 1986 or even 1996. We are talking about a level of spending for 2006, right? If we reduced a department's spending by 20 or 25 per cent over four years, we are talking 5 per cent a year. So if we can make good savings in welfare and keep public sector pay under control, we should be able to achieve these reductions, get to balancing the budget, with a bright future for the economy and well-paid jobs for our people," he told the News of the World.
During a tightly controlled first day at the conference, there were no public complaints from grassroots about Mr Cameron's decision to enter coalition with the Liberal Democrats, though relations between the two parties are often poisonous on the ground, where they are frequently bitter opponents on hundreds of councils.
Paying tribute to Mr Cameron for displaying leadership, several senior figures, including Mr Hague, attempted to offer comfort to the party organisation, emphasising that the Conservatives have succeeded in getting a large part of their election manifesto, even if it did have to accept some compromises on inheritance taxes and other issues.
"We could have . . . attempted to run a minority government for a few months and hoped a snap election could produce something better. But this party. . . exist[ s] to serve the country, to do the right thing by Britain as a whole," he said.