Mandelson: frontline services first

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

The full text of Peter Mandelson’s lecture to Progress this morning is now available on the Progress website.

Mandelson says:

“What has been instructive is how the past year has exposed the limits of David Cameron’s modernising rhetoric. The veil is being lifted. Their only answer to the global financial crisis has been one of retrenchment, regardless of the social consequences, recalling Conservative governments of the past. It is our job to expose them and the risk they pose to our economic future and the future of our frontline public services.

Led by Gordon Brown, Britain has driven the fightback against the global downturn. Our efforts helped prevent recession turning into a 1930s Great Depression.

But, despite signs that the economy is picking up, our work is far from done. The task ahead is to build the new economy that will emerge from the global whirlwind that has hit us.”

He then outlines Labour’s spending priorities, declaring:

“The choices Labour makes will aim to sustain our investment in the nation’s priorities – an approach of “frontline first”. Our top priority will be to protect essential services and activities on which the vast majority of people who, for example, cannot afford private education and private healthcare depend.”

Read the full speech on the Progress website here.

Photo: Left Foot Forward

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