MP playing easy target

In her column, Bridget Phillipson MP plays an easy game criticising the Conservative Government on the economy but was less forthcoming about the plans of her own party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Having inherited the largest peacetime deficit and a note that said, “Sorry, there is no money left”, the Conservatives have reduced the deficit by two thirds; created three million jobs and helped start one million businesses.

Closer to home, unemployment in the North East is at a 43-year low; 3,777 people have moved off benefits and into work in Sunderland and the city has one of the best new business survival rates in the country.

On the NHS, to suggest that accident and emergency times are “spiralling out of control” looks exaggerated given that the latest figures for Sunderland’s hospital shows a 94% figure against a 95% target.

Under the National Funding Formula, local schools will see rising budgets but more importantly there are now 1.8million more pupils in good or outstanding schools since 2010, many of them in our city.

In fact, both health and schools spending are at a record high but this can only be sustained by a growing economy and many would say this is threatened by the prospect of the Marxist economics of John McDonnell.

Since their manifesto launch, the Labour Party has made £312billion in commitments but when asked how it would be paid they are less forthcoming.

Supported by many Labour MPs these policies have been played out in Venezuela to devastating effect with an oil-rich country reduced to a basket case and its people to abject poverty. Coun Robert Oliver Leader, Conservative Group, Sunderland City Council