Miliband stresses frugality at manifesto launch

Ed Miliband insisted he would be more fiscally responsible than Gordon Brown or Tony Blair as he promised to fund all Labour's election promises without extra borrowing.

The Labour leader accused the Tories of coming up with £20bn of unfunded election pledges as he sought to put frugal public finances at the heart of the party's manifesto.

Mr Miliband, speaking at the old Granada studios in Manchester, set out the party's pre-announced pledges to freeze energy price bills, ban most zero-hours contracts, raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour, and raise taxes for the wealthiest while also promising to cut the deficit every year.

The election contest was for "incredibly high stakes," he declared to applause. "Let's change this country."

Labour's manifesto is a plain booklet with red writing on a white background - in contrast to its 2010 version, which had the image of a family gazing at a sunrise across a pastoral landscape.

Mr Miliband, flanked by his shadow cabinet, told a group of Labour supporters and media that his policies were "affordable and fully-funded" rather than a "shopping list" of giveaways.

"We're doing something that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never had to to," he said. "Saying there would be cuts in unprotected departments."

The Tories had by contrast been "throwing promises around" with no idea where the money would come from, he claimed. "You can't fund the NHS with an IOU," he said in reference to the Conservative promise to find £8bn a year extra for the health service. "Every promise we make is paid for - that is the difference between the Conservative party and the Labour party."

Mr Miliband said the recent promises from the Tories were a sign of "desperation and panic".

"I don't think the Conservative party would have done this three weeks ago," he said. "This is what parties do when they run out of road and ideas.

The Labour promises in the manifesto also included extra money for the NHS paid for with an annual tax on expensive properties, a freeze in rail fares and a commitment not to raise the basic or higher rate of income tax, national insurance or VAT.

The new policy of freezing rail fares for a year - at the cost of £200m - will be funded by switching spending from delaying road projects on the A27 and the A358.

The Labour leader also promised to protect tax credits in the next parliament, lifting them in line with inflation from next year. He said he would introduce a new National Primary Childcare Service to help working parents. This would underpin a legal right to guaranteed access to childcare in breakfast or after-school clubs from 8am to 6pm.

But the main theme of the opposition party's election platform is a commitment to fiscal austerity - designed to tackle Labour's perceived weakness head-on.

The pledges come as both Labour and Conservative parties attempt to shift the polls in their favour in a tightly fought election campaign.

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Mr Miliband portrayed his policies as a break from Labour's past as he set out a "Budget responsibility lock" in an effort to portray Labour as a fiscally responsible party.

"The very start of our manifesto is different to previous elections. It does not do what most manifestos do. It isn't a shopping list of spending policies," he said.

"It does something different: It's very first page sets out to avow to protect our nation's finances; a clear commitment that every policy in this manifesto is paid for without a single penny of extra borrowing."

The Labour leader also signalled that his commitments to cutting the deficit in the next parliament were non-negotiable, in effect making this a red line in any post-election deal the party might strike with the anti-austerity Scottish Nationalist party.

The Conservatives on Sunday challenged Labour to outline which taxes it intended to increase to meet pledges on deficit reduction it had already made.

The Tory party has committed to £25bn of spending cuts to eliminate the current structural deficit by 2017-18.

Labour has yet to outline specific plans on how it will deliver its promise to get national debt falling and a surplus on the current budget by the end of the next parliament.

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