Mandy resumes attack on Osborne
By politics.co.uk
Lord Mandelson has resumed his attack on George Osborne today, saying of his speech yesterday that he had “never heard anything so laughable in my life”.
Mr Osborne’s speech yesterday tried to claim the mantle of progressive politics from Labour, with the shadow chancellor arguing that the Tories were the only party which would force through reform of public services and party politics.
But the business secretary said health and education cuts would take away a vital safety net in tough economic times.
“This exposes the rank hypocrisy of George Osborne’s claims to represent the party of progressives,” he told the Today programme.
“I’ve never heard anything so laughable in my life.”
But Lord Mandelson did admit that social mobility had not improved under Labour in a way he had anticipated.
He also admitted there would have to be adjustments to public spending.
“Over the medium term, we need to rebalance the public finances in order to reduce the fiscal deficit,” he said.
“That is not going to be achieved in a year or two. It is going to be achieved when we are through this rescession, when we are into the economic upturn, when we will have greater scope and flexibility to adjust our spending plans to address the deficit.”
He added: “There is no question that we are fiscally irresponsible or that we are in denial. We are the first to acknowledge that over the medium term these adjustments will have to take place.”
Mr Osborne’s speech yesterday, at the thinktank Demos, claimed Labour would become irrelevant “for years to come”.
