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Prosperity or austerity? – 8 in the morning, April 8th

8am

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

* Gordon Brown is to mount what the Guardian calls a “make or break” fightback today on the Tory plans on National Insurance.

* Brown will say people must choose between a “Labour age of prosperity or a Conservative age of austerity”.

* And the PM will promise to keep the basic rate of income tax at 20p for the duration of the next parliament.

* A Cameron adviser who identified £12bn of spending savings in a potential Tory government chairs a private healthcare firm that openly admits it will benefit from NHS spending cutbacks, reports the Guardian.

* The David Cameron question: Voters still doubt the Tory leader, says the Times.

* What has happened to the Tory obsession with debt?

* The Tories can’t muzzle election talk about Europe, writes Timothy Garton-Ash in the Guardian.

* The first new poll of the campaign shows Labour up and the Tories down…

Alex is the founder and CEO of The Cares Family. He was editor and first director of LabourList in 2009-2010, during which time he established the site as the number one Labour blog, and later an aide to Ed Miliband.

View all articles by Alex Smith
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