Brown re-launch torn apart by economic allegations
By Alex Stevenson and Ian Dunt
Gordon Brown’s much trumpeted re-launch was instantly dismantled by a series of damaging economic controversies today.
The Building Britain’s Future report, effectively a manifesto for the general election, was launched this afternoon.
The package included a commitment to offer anyone under 25 a guaranteed job, work experience or training, with an “obligation” for the individual to accept the offer. Should they reject the offer, their benefits would be cut.
The extra investment in housing will be trebled by funding reallocation, the prime minister said, resulting in an increase from £600 million to £2.1 billion investment.
That would lead to 110,000 new homes to rent or buy, Mr Brown said.
There will also be a significant expansion of private-sector involvement in the NHS for cancer patients.
But the re-launch was marred when Lord Mandelson told this morning’s Today programme the package would not come with new spending plans, allowing the Tories to argue there was no price tag to the proposals.
In a move that seemed to tie the chancellor’s hands over spending, the business secretary said: “The spending period currently operating in government stretches beyond the next election and therefore it is reasonable to review public spending at that time.”
He added that Alistair Darling had already “made that judgment”.
By lunchtime, the government’s problems had become more severe, with the OECD saying the government had to be more “ambitious” and “explicit” about the need for spending cuts.
“The OECD has just torpedoed Gordon Brown’s re-launch,” shadow chancellor George Osborne said.
“Rarely has such a re-launch fallen apart quite so quickly and completely.
“We are left with a re-launch without a price-tag, a fiscal policy under attack internationally and a Cabinet in disarray over the basic approach to spending.”
The Building Britain’s Future document includes the government’s draft legislative programme.
It also featured promises of more education reforms, with the “best headteachers” working in more than one school as trusts, academies and federations are expanded.
There will be further efforts from foreign secretary David Miliband on prohibiting the stockpiling or use of cluster munitions.
Mr Brown promised to legislate in the next session to complete the process of ridding the Lords of the hereditary principle and allow for the dismissal of members.
“The prime minister is living in a dream world,” David Cameron shouted in his response to Mr Brown’s statement.
“When is someone going to tell him that he has run out of money?”
Nick Clegg, Liberal democrat leader, accused the two main parties of treating the public like children.
“The prime minister and the leader of the Conservatives have just perfected their fake debate on public spending,” he told the Commons.
“Neither are willing to come clean on the different long term saving needed to balance the nation’s books.”
Senior Labour figures hope the agenda for maintaining high-level public services will be easily contrasted with the Conservatives’ alleged plans for ten per cent cuts in public services, a figure the party disputes.
Business secretary Peter Mandelson told the Today programme that the public sector reforms were an exercise in “reprioritising expenditure” between departments.
“We have to live within our means as a government and being fiscally responsible is an important principle of New Labour,” he said.
“Although future spending will be conditioned both by the need to rebalance finances to pay down borrowing, our ambition to sustain higher levels of spending will be linked to the performance of the economy, on growth, and our ability to generate employment.”
Today’s initiatives had been described as the ‘national plan’ within Whitehall but this description was dropped because of its statist overtones.
The government’s agenda is far-reaching nonetheless, with further announcements planned for the rest of the week.
A white paper on education from children’s secretary Ed Balls tomorrow will be followed on Wednesday by a consumer white paper, published by Mr Brown, Lord Mandelson and Kevin Brennan.
