Ed Miliband urges voters to focus on big issues

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/04/ed-miliband-voters-focus-on-big-issues-election

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Ed Miliband has urged voters to think about the big choice between Labour and Conservative values in Thursday’s election as he fended off claims that he would be in hock to the Scottish National party or had not learned the lessons of Labour overspending in government in the 1990s.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Miliband said David Cameron had lost the argument on the NHS, the economy and leadership and was resorting to claiming that the fight was between two nations, England and Scotland, rather than two sets of values – whether the country was run for the elite or for the majority of working people.

Meanwhile, a close ally of the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, has claimed he was told by Clegg that Cameron had privately admitted he would not win an overall majority.

The disclosure was made on Twitter by Lord Scriven, a Lib Dem peer and former leader of Sheffield city council. The Conservatives hotly denied the claim and said Cameron had held no such discussion, adding that the prime minister was 100%-focused on winning an overall majority.

So Cameron has taken to lying on Tory Maj. @nick_clegg told me that Cameron privately admitted to him that the Tories won't win a majority

The exchanges may reflect Liberal Democrat nervousness that in some seats voters are opposed to a Lab-Lib deal and want reassurance that the Conservatives will need a deal with the Lib Dems. Liberal Democrats sources insisted the private conversation had happened.

In his Today interview, Miliband said: “I am still fighting for the big issues in this election and I am still fighting because there is a huge choice between whether the country is run for the most rich and most powerful or a Labour government that puts working people first. I think we owe it to the country to lay before them the huge issues and including a recovery that goes beyond the City of London. In the final hours it is really important on focusing on that big choice.”

Miliband is focusing on the health service in the final few days, believing it is the issue that pushes swing voters to Labour.

He continued to insist he would not make a deal with the Scottish nationalists over his Queen’s speech measures, or negotiate with the SNP leadership. “I want to put a Labour Queen’s speech in front of the Commons and win a Labour majority for that speech. What the SNP does or any other MP elected to the House of Commons is a matter for them,” he said.

Asked whether a Labour government could be legitimate if it was formed after the party came second in terms of seats, Miliband said it was a matter for constitutional lawyers, but he added: “Until there is an election outcome I take the old-fashioned view that we should let people vote in the election.”

Pressed on whether the last Labour government had overspent, he cited an article by the Treasury permanent secretary, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, which said the 2008 downturn was “a banking crisis pure and simple”. Miliband has argued that the deficit was caused by the financial crisis and not the other way round.

Aides to McPherson have stressed that the article was written before the general election campaign in March and also contained warnings that there was a need to get deficits under control.

Miliband said he was “proud we invested in hospitals and schools”, and added: “The debt and the deficit before the financial crisis were lower than those we inherited and George Osborne adopted our spending plans three weeks before what happened in Northern Rock.”

He continued: “We will cut the deficit every year, we will have a current account surplus as as soon as possible in the next parliament and net debt will be falling. I believe I am the first Labour leader that is going into an election that is saying spending is going to fall.”

Miliband was challenged about the judgment of the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies that Labour’s spending plans were unclear. He said he did not wish to pluck a date out of the air by which the current deficit would be eradicated. “Some parties are saying no cuts at all. I am not saying that. There are other parties saying double the cuts next year. Ours is a balanced, sensible plan,” he said.

Miliband sidestepped a question on whether his widely ridiculed limestone monument setting out the party’s six pledges would be installed in Downing Street, following reports that he would not get council planning permission. He said he would leave the landscape gardening to others.