Party Lines: October 21st

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

As the reality of the coalition’s cuts continues began to sink in a day after the Comprehensive Spending Review, Labour figures were on the offensive, pointing out the cost, scale and true nature of yesterday’s announcements. Meanwhile, Jim Murphy attacked Taliban “propaganda” and said that the British people won’t fall for it.

Alan Johnson appeared early this morning on Sky News Sunrise, and said that Tory talk of pulling the country back from the brink was “guff” and “nonsense”:

“They are saying this is unavoidable – leave aside the guff about pulling back the country from the brink of bankruptcy, which is total nonsense – actually it’s about political choices, it’s not unavoidable.”

“Not only are these cuts unwise, they’re unfair. There’s great cruelty in this and great unfairness that’s being introduced into our society.”

Later, Johnson warned that George Osborne’s job cut plans could cost the taxpayer £8bn, based on the redundancy bill for the Ministry of Justice, where 14,000 staff are set to lose their jobs at a cost of £230m. Johnson said:

“If the taxpayer has to foot a comparable redundancy bill for the 490,000 jobs that are to go across the public sector, George Osborne has lined them up for an £8bn hit. That is the price of going too far and too fast. On a timetable determined by the date of next election, not the economic cycle.”

Angela Eagle continued the attack on Osborne’s unravelling budget, accusing him of using “smoke and mirrors”:

“George Osborne’s smoke and mirrors have well and truly unravelled. On any measure his plans hit the poorest hardest. And the IFS have all but called him a liar for his ridiculous claim that he is cutting less than Labour planned.”

Ed Balls reacted to further evidence which proves crime fell under Labour. However he also expressed concern about the effect of cuts, especially on police numbers:

And shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy addressed claims from the Taliban that they are largely funded by UK donors in a Sky News interview, and called them “propaganda”:

“This claim that the Muslim community in the United Kingdom are a great source of funding for the Taliban is nonsense and rubbish.”

“The huge, vast majority of Muslims in this country see the Taliban for what they are a corruption of the Koran, a vile, vicious, murderers who’ll stop at nothing, so I think it’s a lie, I think it’s propaganda, I don’t think anyone will fall for it.”