‘WE HAVE got to make our case, explaining our vision house by house, street by street, town by town’, Labour leader Ed Miliband told a rally of Labour activists in Salford to launch the party’s election campaign yesterday.
Miliband continued: ‘Now our campaign is setting a goal that has never been set before by a political party.
‘Holding four million conversations in just four months about how we change our country.’
Later in his speech, he outlined the policies that Labour are to campaign on:
Championing apprenticeship schemes for youth, paid at a mere £2.73 an hour, he said: ‘Our plan is to have as many young people leave school to do an apprenticeship as currently go to university’.
On the NHS he pledged: ‘A guaranteed GP appointment within 48 hours. A one-week wait for cancer tests. And a £2.5 billion Time To Care fund to support more midwives, care workers, doctors and nurses.’
However, indicating that Labour will match the Tories cut for cut, he said: ‘And it is by making different choices that we will deal with the deficit responsibly and still meet the obligations to our country’s future.
‘Ours is a plan to cut the deficit every year and balance the books as soon as possible in the next parliament.
‘And until that happens it does mean, outside protected areas, spending will be falling, not rising, department by department. With no proposals in our manifesto funded by additional borrowing.’
Signalling that Labour would step up the attack on immigrants, he said that immigrants’ ‘benefits should be earned, so people should contribute before they claim’.
He announced Labour’s plans to ‘raise the minimum wage to eight pounds an hour’ adding ‘yes it means dealing with the scandal of zero hours contracts in our country.’
After his speech, in the questions and answers session, when asked if Labour would abolish the bedroom tax and abolish zero hours contracts, he would only confirm the abolition of bedroom tax.
A refugee from Afghanistan asked Miliband: ‘One thing you have not mentioned is foreign policy. . . A few weeks ago Britain ended its combat mission in Afghanistan, hundreds of lives have been lost, billions have been spent.
‘What would the next government do differently, not just in Afghanistan but in the Middle East to stabilise and sort out this mess.
‘But also, will the next Labour government recognise Palestine as a Palestinian state and will the next government not do the same as the Tories did last week in the United Nations in not voting for a Palestinian state.’
Miliband responded: ‘I think that you will know that in the House of Commons vote that happened a few weeks back we voted for the motion and I think that is the right thing to do and we have said before that in relation to the vote at the UN we would have been supporting the enhanced observer status that took place.’
