Miliband: Govt path a ‘gamble with growth’
Ed Miliband sets out his economic stall in a speech to the CBI conference:
“The argument I want to make today is that because the world has changed so much since the 1990s and because we need to learn lessons from success and failure, what it means to be pro-business in the 2010s is different to what it meant back then.
“We do believe that a four year timetable for halving the deficit would be a better approach.
“And, I do fear that the path the government is pursuing is a gamble with growth and jobs.
“They have a programme which will lead to the disappearance of a million private and public sector jobs but no credible plan to replace them.
“And their refusal to accept that a deficit reduction plan has to be sensitive to changing economic circumstances needlessly makes the British economy a hostage to fortune.
“Time will tell whether they turn out to be right.
“I believe we need to take a different and more optimistic approach – an approach that sees deficit reduction as a start not an end and is willing to learn the profound lessons of the crisis.
“My view is that it is only this that truly serves the interests of British business.”
