BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown has said that Labour faces “the fight of our lives” to win next month’s general election, as he unveiled a plan that promised to reform British politics and public services.
However, the decision to launch the party’s manifesto in a new £600 million (€679 million) hospital in Birmingham sparked a bitter row, with the Conservatives accusing Labour of exploiting the National Health Service and breaching official election rules.
Under the rules, politicians are allowed filmed visits to hospitals, but not to hold meetings, but Mr Brown said Labour had not broken regulations because the builders would not sign the hospital over to the NHS for “a number of weeks”.
Putting the emphasis on the future, Mr Brown warned supporters: “The future will be progressive or Conservative, but it will not be both.
“New Labour is in the fight of its life – and it is the fight for our and your future.” Strikingly, the UK’s £160 billion deficit this year and near £1 trillion debt barely figured in the document, bar the previously-stated declaration that the deficit will be cut in half over the next four years.
The respected Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) last night said Labour had “disappointed” those who hoped the manifesto would detail the combination of public spending cuts and tax increases necessary to “repair our public finances”.
“The party listed plenty of new things it would like to do, but was no clearer about where the spending cuts would fall. And it listed a few tax increases that it promised not to implement, but left the door wide open to many others,” said the IFS.
Meanwhile, the independent economic body warned that Labour’s practice of not increasing tax thresholds in line with inflation would “significantly” raise the number of people paying tax at 40 per cent and 50 per cent rates.
Voters will be offered referenda next year to change voting rules for the House of Commons, to ensure that MPs have 50 per cent support in their constituencies, along with a three-phase plan to replace the House of Lords with an elected senate.
Equally, voters could demand a byelection if a sufficient number signed a petition to get rid of their MP, but only if the House of Commons had previously failed to discipline such a politician for flagrant abuse of privileges.
Income tax will stay the same, though Mr Brown left wriggle room about future VAT rates, while people would have the right to get cancer tests within a week and treatment within 18 weeks, along with a new focus on routine check-ups to spot illnesses earlier.
Labour has promised formally that there will be no switch to the euro without a referendum, though the commitment is hardly necessary given the lack of enthusiasm in the United Kingdom for membership of the currency.
Hospital beds to treat alcoholics will be trebled in numbers, while poorly-performing police forces will be taken over by neighbouring ones if they fail to perform, and high earners will be charged for their accommodation if they are sent to jail.
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats rounded on the prime minister for portraying himself as a figure of change, with both charging that Labour has had 13 years in power and is now offering “only reheated promises”, in the words of the Conservatives.
Predictably, the Confederation of British Industry objected to the Labour plan to increase the minimum wage in line with earnings, saying that this should be left to an independent body to adjudicate upon.