Labour leader launches local election campaign
ED Miliband will today seek to put behind him renewed questions about his leadership in the wake of Labour’s disastrous result in Bradford with the launch of his party’s local election campaign in England when he will promise to govern for the whole country and “not just the wealthy few”.
As Labour faces a crucial test in the polls on May 3 – nowhere more so than in Glasgow – its leader will seek to lift the spirits of grassroots activists stunned by George Galloway’s remarkable by-election victory for the anti-war Respect party.
Although a weekend poll gave Mr Miliband’s party a nine-point lead over the Conservatives, the result in Bradford West – where Mr Galloway overturned a near 6000 Labour majority to post a victory by more than 10,000 votes – has thrown a question mark over the strength of support for the par ty and shaken confidence in the leader’s future.
Speaking in Birmingham alongside fellow Shadow Cabinet members, Mr Miliband will place the issues of crime, the NHS and jobs at the centre of the Labour campaign while seeking to exploit the mood of the Budget by attacking the “out-of-touch” Tories.
The party leader will pledge to make tackling vandalism and antisocial behaviour a priority, highlight efforts by Labour councils to set up work programmes and promise to protect 6000 nurses from UK Government cuts.
At the same time, he will seek to exploit the Coalition’s difficulties over the Budget, David Cameron’s dinners for donors and panic-buying of petrol.
“This is a Government that doesn’t listen to squeezed middle families, who work hard to make ends meet,” he is due to say.
“A Government that doesn’t listen to pensioners, who have worked hard all their lives; and a Government that doesn’t listen to young people, who can only dream of working at all.
“They have abandoned any pretence they can govern for the whole country; they have abandoned middle Britain.”
He will add: “They listen instead to those who have given millions of pounds to the Conservative Party, to the lobbies, who called for a millionaires’ tax cut.
“Opposition is a long and difficult haul. It is going to be a one-term haul, I am confident about that.”