Party Lines: October 18th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today was all about Alan Johnson’s speech at KPMG this morning, which sought to put the flesh on the bones of Labour’s economic policies ahead of Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Also in the news today was Yvette Cooper, who was critical of tomorrow’s strategic defence review, and David Blunkett, who praised the government for acknowledging the risk of cyber terrorism.

Today saw Alan Johnson give his first major speech as shadow chancellor (which you can read in full here). Speaking at KPMG this morning, Johnson sought to signal the differences between the coalition and the Labour Party over the deficit and cuts:

“The biggest difference between us and the government is the recognition of the need for growth.”

“Yes – there must be cuts. Tough choices do have to be made…but without growth, attempts to cut the deficit will be self defeating. A rising dole queue means a bigger welfare bill. And less tax coming in.”

“The deficit was unavoidable and the budget was not only avoidable, but wrong,”

Later in an interview with BBC Radio 4, Johnson outlined how the increased bank levy which he trailed in his speech might work:

“We think that if the banks took a fair proportion of the weight of getting the deficit down then it would give us around £7bn which could be put into capital projects that would help create jobs and growth.”

Yvette Cooper was critical of the government ahead of tomorrow’s strategic defence review in an interview with Sky News, and said that the process was “not strategic”.

“They’re making defence decisions straight away and this is in fact not strategic. There is a concern, even from the defence secretary himself, about the way they’ve rushed important decisions about defence.”

“We don’t know what the defence review will say tomorrow, you do have to make tough decisions around defence as well in other areas, but it’s important they are made in relation to defence analysis.”

David Blunkett praised the government for acknowledging that cyber-security is one of the major threats to the UK, and highlighted the Olympics as the kind of event that needs to be protected from such forms of terrorism:

“I am backing the renewed emphasis placed by the Government on addressing the very real danger to our national infrastructure, to business and to our personal well-being posed by the exponential growth in cyberattack and e-crime.”

“Whilst our personal physical security has to always be uppermost in our minds, there is a very worrying lack of understanding about this new threat and the nature of the damage that can be caused.”

“I hope that we will be able to pre-empt threats from organised criminals – as well as potential state-sponsored action – and ensure that major events such as the Olympics in two years’ time avoid the kind of potential attack which I spoke about 18 months ago.”