Party Lines: January 6th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

As Labour moved four points ahead of the Tories with YouGov, and the Lib Dems fell to just 7% (CON 39%, LAB 43%, LDEM 7%) Labour MPs continued to attack the government on the recovery, the truth behind the deficit, and the flu outbreak

Speaking to BBC News this morning, Douglas Alexander said that the recovery should be faster by now:

“Frankly the economy should be strongly recovering at this point, we should be seeing strong job growth and one of the things that’s of real concern is that if we have a sluggish jobs market over the coming year then actually it will have an impact on the pay that employers feel able to be able provide as well as, obviously, causing real concern for the families affected.”

“These are tough times, family incomes have been squeezed in recent years and that’s why we’ve got very real concerns that on top of this data, it’s at this time that the Government’s decided to increase VAT.”

Ed Miliband was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show, and admitted that he has “further to go”:

“There’s further to go for me to set out both what we need to do as a political party and who I am as a politician, and indeed as a person.”

“We face a big challenge, which is that we’re in opposition, we were in government for 13 years and we have to make this big argument and this is what I’m going to do very clearly in the new year. I’ve set out very clear my intention to do that about this choice that we face.”

“We’ve got to show that the Government’s claim, this Conservative-led government’s claim, there is no alternative is wrong. There is an alternative.”

Challenged that all many people know of Ed is that he “shafted” his brother, he replied:

“We both had felt that we had something to say, something distinctive to say, a distinctive leadership to provide to the party and we discussed beforehand that we both wanted to stand.”

“The Labour Party has some experience of people standing aside for other people, 1994, when Gordon Brown stood aside for Tony Blair. I’m not sure that was so great for our party. Both of us, maybe, were informed by that experience.”

“I absolutely want him back in the shadow cabinet. He made a decision which was the right decision for him and his family which was to stand back from frontline politics for a period but let’s see what happens in the future.”

And in an argument that will be continued on Newsnight later, John Healey attacked the government’s reaction to the flu outbreak, saying that the health secretary has to sort this out:

“The new figures that show cases of flu slowing down are encouraging but I fear we’re not over the worst of it because most of Britain has only returned to work or school this week.”

“What still concerns me is that this Tory-led Government has been slow to act at every stage. It has now got to be ready to back up the efforts of GPs in targeting those most at risk, ready to give vaccines to children under five if things get worse, and ready to sort out the problems of local shortages of vaccines.”

“There is no reason why we should be running short of vaccinations with proper planning and preparation, and the Health Secretary has to sort this out.”