Miliband: Coalition is ‘pulling the country apart’
Ed Miliband today accused the government of returning to the “politics of division” of the 1980s.
Speaking at a ‘people’s policy forum’ event in Nottingham, the Labour leader said the coalition was repeating the mistakes of the past and “dividing” the country.
“David Cameron said that ‘we are all in this together’. But it just doesn’t feel like that. Too often it feels like what he is doing is practising the politics of division,” he said.
“Most of the country that never caused the financial crisis is paying the price of it, while bankers get tax cuts and more bonuses.
“People in jobs are being told to resent people on benefits. Private sector workers are being told to resent those in the public sector. Young people are being told that they won’t get the same life chances as their parents.”
Mr Miliband said he thought it was the Labour party’s “job” to unite the country in the face of the coalition’s spending cuts.
“I’m afraid I don’t believe these policies can unify the country. So it falls to all of us to seek to find ways to rebuild and unify Britain.
“Our job, as the Labour party, is to unify the country.”
The Labour leader highlighted three main challenges he believes the country is facing: a cost of living crisis, maintaining the ‘promise of Britain’ – where each generation does better than the last – and securing strong communities.
Ahead of the TUC ‘march for the alternative’ tomorrow, where up to a quarter of a million people are expected to descend on London to protest the government’s programme of cuts, Mr Miliband said the marchers were “the mainstream majority”.
“They are, we are, the mainstream majority. They are saying they want a Britain that is pulling together not pulled apart,” he added.
