News from Labour Matters

Labour’s legacy is fast growth and more jobs

The current Chairman of the Conservative Party, Baroness Warsi, and and Lib Dem Chris Huhne held a joint press conference today to put the ConDem spin on the employment figures and accuse Labour of being “in denial” of the need for spending cuts.

If it seems unusual for leading politicians to be trying to influence the media in the August ’silly season’, when most are taking a break from politics, it’s even more unusual because the employment figures showed the number of EMPLOYED people from April to June INCREASED sharply by 184,000 – the result of the previous Labour Government’s economic policies.

The Baroness Warsi repeated the lie that the cuts the ConDems are planning to make were “unavoidable” and claimed the deficit was “Labour’s legacy”.

In fact, as the data gets published, Labour’s legacy looks increasingly like a very strong economic recovery which is already being threatened by ConDem cuts being made too soon. Just as Labour’s Alistair Darling warned.

Alistair Darling, of course, had a plan to halve the deficit in four years, making much smaller cuts than the ConDems, and only starting once the recovery is secure. That was also what the Lib Dems backed, before putting Cameron in Number 10.

It might be silly season, but the ConDem’s crude attempt to rewrite immediate history is laughable in the face of 1.1% growth from April to June (the fastest growth in four years), today’s surprisingly good employment figures, and the Governor of the Bank of England cutting the prospects for growth with the ConDems.

So why did the Conservatives and their junior partners, the Liberal Democrats, hold a press conference today? Because it’s silly season, and they think you’re dumb.

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