Party Lines: October 15th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today Ed Miliband joined John Denham, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, and Jack Dromey MP (Birmingham Erdington), to praise the cooperation between Jaguar Land Rover, the company’s workforce and the trade union, in securing long-term investment in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood. Meanwhile the current shadow education secretary, and a former education secretary, were both scathing in their criticism of Nick Clegg’s “pupil premium”.

Ed Miliband said that today’s Jaguar agreement “will drive growth in Britain”:

“This is a great example of cooperation between Jaguar Land Rover, the company’s workforce and the trade union. As a result of this responsible negotiation, manufacturing in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood is secure. This decision will drive growth in Britain and bring extra jobs to the West Midlands and Merseyside.

“This news of £5 billion investment in British manufacturing stands in stark contrast to how the Tory-led coalition government are approaching the current economic situation by putting the fragile recovery at risk and undermining economic growth.”

John Denham was full of priase for the workforce, saying:

“It is great news that Jaguar Land Rover, a truly global automotive company, has chosen Britain’s manufacturing sector as its long-term base. This news is a testament to the company’s workforce, which for generations has developed a world-class reputation for British manufacturing.”

And local MP Jack Dromey called this “brilliant news in bleak times”:

“This is brilliant news in bleak times. Castle Bromwich built the Spitfire during the war and two generations of the Jaguar. My constituency of Erdington is one of the poorest in Britain but now the future of its jewel in the crown of manufacturing excellence has been secured.”

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 this morning, shadow education secretary Andy Burnham suggested that Nick Clegg’s “fairness premium” announcement was designed to save face after another difficult week for the Liberal Democrats:

“There is no disagreement here about the importance of investing in young children. But I fear this is another rushed out announcement….this is a rushed out announcement on a Friday, to help Mr Clegg out of a political hole.”

“It comes out of nowhere after a hard week for the Lib Dems. He can’t talk about fairness when on a Friday when on Tuesday he was backing cuts to university budgets and increases in tuition fees.”

David Blunkett was even more sctahing than Burnham in his criticism of the “fairness premium” propsals, going as far as to call them fraudulent. Blunkett said:

“All three elements of what the Deputy Prime Minister is trying to present as positive and new have already been Labour policy. The extension of entitlements to two-year-olds from disadvantaged families was announced by Ed Balls in the last parliament. Additional help for students was part of Opportunity Bursaries from the changes in higher education funding in 1998, extended in 2005. And the much-vaunted ‘pupil premium’ is money directly taken from cuts in the Area-Based Grant to local government, which is hitting children and young people’s services and specific funding for disadvantaged schools.”

“The Pupil Learning Credit, trialled by Labour from 2001, provided over £300 per pupil in the areas of disadvantage covered by the Excellence in Cities programme. Nick Clegg has not yet spelt out – and nor has Michael Gove – what the pupil premium will amount to per pupil; but rolling up four years of funding and presenting it as a combined figure is just the sort of smoke and mirrors that Tories and Lib Dems were quick to condemn in the past.”

“This isn’t only old rather than new politics – but old rather than new money. It therefore seeks to fraudulently mislead families and to shortchange children – and we should condemn it as such.”