LABOURS BUDGET WILL NOT HELP STOCKPORT

12.12.27am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 25th Apr 2009

New Labour are floundering as the realities of their own recession reveals the Budget to be nothing more than the hollow spin of a Government that has run out wool to pull over the countries eyes.

Just two days after delivering the budget the Chancellor of the exchequer's grasp of economic realities has been thrown into question as the economy hits a 30 year low. For years New Labour claimed credit for a booming global economy and encouraged everyone else to live off credit. Now Alastair Darling and his Parliamentary Private Secretary the Labour MP for Stockport are trying to pretend the crash is nothing to do with them.

Labour's latest budget shows that they have run out of ideas it condemns the country to years of unemployment and a decade of debt. The budget's handful of regurgitated announcements will do nothing to get us out of the recession and nothing that will help the poorest who are being hit hardest by it.

With a shocking deficit this year of £175bn Labour's plans will drive the UK further into debt. They also fail to deliver the kind of practical help a Liberal Democrat budget would have brought to households in Stockport. A Liberal Democrat Budget would take 4 million people out of paying tax all together and would cut the majority of people's income tax by £700. Paid for by cutting loophole and exemptions that benefit the richest individuals and big business. We would cancel the pointless VAT cut and invest in important green projects that create jobs right now.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are planning swingeing cuts at the very time that the country is expected to be gradually starting to recover.

The country deserves something better - a Liberal Democrat government, Vince Cable as Chancellor and a tax system that has everybody paying their fair share instead of allowing the rich to avoid tax while the least well off pick up the slack.

To read more about the Lib Dem plans visit http://www.libdems.org.uk/home