Party Lines: October 11th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

In today’s “Party Lines”, new junior shadow Emily Thornberry took on Tory cuts on the Today Programme, Margaret Hodge reminded Sir Philip Green of the differences between government and Topshop, Andy Burnham was the first shadow minister out of the traps attacking Gove hard at education questions and Angela Eagle gave David Cameron a history lesson.

Emily Thornberry (now a shadow in Labour’s health team) was on the Today Programme this morning, where she was critical of the coaliton’s cuts agenda, and the impact it will have on local authorities:

“I think it is not fair and it isn’t right to try and pay off the deficit within four years. And I think paying off the deficit within four years by ways of 80% cuts and 20% taxes, where the 20% taxes that we have seen so far are VAT increases that affect the poor most, will of course by definition not be fair. The people who are most dependent on public services are the poorest and are the weakest.”

“It is all very well for the government to say ‘we are going to do this in a fair way’ but what they will be doing largely is passing an awful lot of these cuts down to local authorities or to health authorities and getting them to make the decisions.”

Margaret Hodge welcomed Sir Philip Green’s suggestions on cutting waste from Whitehall – but was cutting when she suggested that the process was “very different” from running Topshop:

“I welcome any recommendations by Philip Green, I am sure he has some interesting ideas and the committee I chair also has some ideas on how to save some money. I, however, think running Topshop is very different to running government.”

Meanwhile, in the house Andy Burnham was quick out of the traps, attachking Michael Gove in his firste ducation questions as shadow secretary of state for education. Burnham attacked the Education secretary, saying that he “failed to understand the difference between being a minister and a journalist”. Lambasting Gove, Burnham said:

“He promised hundreds of free schools, but signed off just 16, he promised thousands of academies, but so far has signed off 15 and he put his mistakes on Building Schools for the Future, threw schools into chaos and prompted four legal challenges from local authorities.”

“Can he confirm he proceeded with his decision to scrap school building projects despite being warned by his senior civil servant that local authorities would have a fairly strong legal case against his department?”

And finally, Angela Eagle – Labour’s new shadow chief secretary of the treasury – said that David Cameron had a point when he referenced Lord Kitchener’s “your country needs you” slogan, saying:

“Kitchener’s army became the tragic symbol of a lost generation pointlessly sacrificed because of the idiocy of those in charge”.