Ed Miliband's 100 days of dithering and disarray

Ed Miliband's first 100 days as Labour Party leader have been characterised by dithering and disarray, according to a dossier released by the Conservative Party.

Top dithers cited by the document include backtracking on producing an alternative spending review, leaving a £59bn black hole in his spending plans, dithering over whether to attend the student protests and a TUC rally, and an infamous Today programme interview in which he was unable to define the “squeezed middle”.

Since winning the Labour leadership race in September thanks to union backing, Mr Miliband's first three months as Labour leader have seen serious splits in the Shadow Cabinet on civil liberties, on whether to keep the 50p tax permanent, and on his idea of a graduate tax, described as “unworkable” by Alan Johnson, his Shadow Chancellor.

Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi said:

"Ed Miliband's first hundred days have been characterised by dithering and disarray. No wonder people on his own side are already losing patience with his lack of leadership. After winning off back of the union vote, he's offered nothing but opportunism and a blank sheet of paper on policy."


Click here to download the full document.

Political scare tactics on VAT increase are badly miscalculated

Tomorrow's 2.5% VAT increase, which will raise £13bn towards paying off Labour's legacy of deficit debt, seems to have political opponents across the Nation in a mathematical meltdown.

According to the SNP, the VAT rise could cost Scottish households around £590 a year. http://www.snp.org/node/17581
Of course, issues over potential tax raising has proved to be a bit of a sore point for the Nationalists of late....

On the other hand, Labour leader Ed Miliband said the average family would have to find an extra £7.50 "each and every week", adding up to an extra £389 a year http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12106168

The V.A.T. rise will no doubt be universally unwelcome but sadly necessary, the fire stoked by the media keen to whip the Nation into a frenzy of predictable anti-Government rage.

However, if you go back to the headlines when V.A.T. was reduced from 17.5% to 15% back in 2008 by Labour, the puny amount was hardly noticed by the average shopper, the big stores said it barely increased sales & made little to no difference. No credit was given at all for the modest reduction, only ridicule & criticism.

Lets not forget, former Chancellor Alistair Darling actually wanting to raise VAT to 20% too whilst in office to help reduce his own Government's deficit.

Finally, tomorrow sees 100 days of Blank Paper from Miliband and no alternatives as to how Labour would find the £13bn of cuts required to help reduce Labour's deficit if no VAT increase was implemented. He truly is the Man without a Plan.