CAMERON closed the crisis-dominated Tory Party Conference in Birmingham yesterday by announcing that if the Tories are elected next May they will cut taxes, funded by another £25 billion in public service cuts, along with an escalation of the war on the working class, the unemployed and especially, the youth.
‘With us, you will get unemployment benefit, but only if you go to the job centre, update your cv, attend interviews and accept the work you’re offered. As I said, no more something for nothing.
‘And just look at the results of what we’ve achieved so far, 800,000 fewer people on the main out of work benefits.
‘And in the next five years we’re going to go further. You heard it this week, we won’t just aim to lower youth unemployment. We aim to abolish it.
‘And we have made clear decisions. We will reduce the benefits cap and we will say to those 21 and under, no longer will you have the option of leaving school and going straight into a life of benefits. You must earn or learn …
‘We want to cut more of your taxes, but we can only do that if we keep on cutting the deficit. This is common sense. Tax cuts need to be paid for, so here is our plan.
‘We are going to balance the books by 2018 and start putting aside money for the future. To do it we’ll need to find £25 billion worth of savings in the first two years of the next parliament.
‘That is a lot of money, but it’s doable … I’m confident that we’ll find the savings that we need through spending cuts alone …
He then announced universal unpaid forced labour for all youth, saying: ‘The next Conservative government will guarantee a place on National Citizens Service for every teenager in our country.’
Focussing on Cameron’s description of the Tories as ‘the party of the NHS,’ Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey said: ‘David Cameron’s double talk on the NHS is a sick joke. The Tories are not the party of the NHS, they are the party that sold the NHS.
‘The Prime Minister promised no top-down reorganisation of the NHS but billions of pounds are being squandered on a reorganisation that has already handed 70 per cent of NHS contracts to the private sector. David Cameron did not have a mandate to sell-off our NHS – no one voted for it.
‘Money the Tories are claiming to protect is being handed over to privateers that put profits before people.’
