ED’S BIG LIE ON THE SCOTS
... and he’s telling a whopper on the economy, too
‘The threat today is the
same as yesterday’
ED Miliband was last night accused of misleading voters as his denials over a Labour-SNP deal spectacularly unravelled.
Critics said the Labour leader was ‘insulting people’s intelligence’ when he used a TV debate to claim he would not work with Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond.
Within hours, a string of senior colleagues confirmed Labour will seek the support of the SNP – on course to win 50 or more MPs and hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said ‘of course’ Labour would have a ‘dialogue’ with other parties. He was backed up by Labour’s energy spokesman Caroline Flint and local government spokesman Hilary Benn.
Last night, Mr Miliband was greeted by pro-independence supporters in Glasgow shouting ‘Red Tories out’ and ‘traitors’.
He used a speech in the city to launch a desperate appeal to Scots voters to return to Labour, citing the party’s founders and attacking nationalism. ‘Don’t gamble with the SNP,’ he pleaded.
But Conservative chief whip Michael Gove warned that unless his party wins next week’s election, Britain faces being ‘held to ransom’ by SNP MPs.
He said: ‘There have been 1,000 [Commons] votes in the last five years. If, before every single one … Ed Miliband has to secure the support of the SNP, go cap in hand to Nicola Sturgeon and to Alex Salmond and to their fearsome 50, that means we will have a paralysed government which will result in more taxation, more spending and more borrowing for all of us.’
SNP leader Miss Sturgeon declared she will seek to put Mr Miliband in No 10 – even if Labour finishes 40 seats behind the Tories – in exchange for concessions. But during Thursday night’s TV clash the Labour leader suggested he would rather not be in power than rely on the SNP.
‘We are not going to do a deal with the Scottish National Party,’ he said. ‘If it meant we would not be in government, then so be it. I’m not going to give in to SNP demands – whether that is on Trident or on the deficit.’
But it quickly became clear Mr Miliband was not ruling out vote-by-vote discussions with the SNP to seek support for a Labour programme.
Miss Flint said: ‘What he [Miliband] ruled out was this idea that, somehow, to have a Labour government we’re prepared to do a coalition or some other kind of confidence and supply deal. But … whoever forms a government, parties will get a chance to vote for a Queen’s Speech, vote for budgets, and vote for policies.’
Mr Benn also confirmed Labour whips would talk to the SNP to seek support for Labour plans.
Later, even Mr Miliband appeared to accept he was not ruling out seeking SNP backing to become prime minister – only a more formal pact – though he claimed the Nationlists would have ‘no influence’.
Miss Sturgeon said the Labour leader had ‘lost the plot’, adding: ‘If Ed Miliband is really saying … he would stand back and watch David Cameron go back into Downing Street rather than work with the SNP, people in Scotland will never, ever forgive Labour … and I suspect people in other parts of the UK won’t forgive them either.’
David Cameron said Mr Miliband’s apparent dismissal of a Labour-SNP deal did not change anything. He added: ‘Is Ed Miliband really saying “If Labour don’t get a majority but Labour plus the SNP is a majority, I won’t be prime minister”?
‘Of course he isn’t saying that. So the threat today is the same as the threat yesterday: Ed Miliband propped up by the SNP, not governing on behalf of the whole of the country.’
Labour’s former Scottish first minister, Jack McConnell, warned last night the public might not accept the next government unless it is led by the party with the most seats. Lord McConnell told Newsnight that if David Cameron wins more seats, even without a majority, ‘the public perception will be that he has won’ and ‘anyone who tries to … get a different PM, will be in trouble’. Mr Miliband also faced a backlash over his insistence that the last Labour government did not spend too much taxpayers’ money.
When asked on the BBC’s Question Time on Thursday if he accepted Labour had overspent, he prompted uproar by replying: ‘No, I don’t.’ Audience member Matt Coucill, 25, a retail manager, said: ‘Ed Miliband almost insulted our intelligence.
People would move past it if he said “fair enough” [on overspending]. But he just can’t.’ Chancellor George Osborne said: ‘Ed Miliband has now made it clear he and Ed Balls are in utter denial over what they did to our public finances … If they get back in next Thursday, they’ll do it all over again.’