For Immediate Release – Sunday 10th October 2010
Attention: NEWS DESKS
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS
72 HOURS IN, JOHNSON AND MILIBAND LOSE CREDIBILITY
WILL IAIN GRAY BACK JOHNSON’S TORY PLAN?
SNP Treasury Spokesperson and Member of the Treasury Select Committee Stewart Hosie MP today (Sunday) said the newly appointed Shadow Chancellor had lost credibility just 72 hours after being appointed. Yesterday, Alan Johnson confirmed he backed Alistair Darling’s deficit reduction plan – for cuts which Mr Darling himself said were “tougher and deeper” than those planned by Margaret Thatcher while today he railed against the potential impact of Con Dem cuts.
Commenting, Mr Hosie asked how Mr Johnson could offer any credible opposition to Con Dem plans to slash public spending and challenged Iain Gray to distance himself from the Shadow Chancellor’s comments.
Mr Hosie said:
“As Shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson should be challenging the plans of the ConDem coalition but it is utterly hypocritical of him to criticise Tory/Lib Dem cuts while he backs Alistair Darling’s programme which was ‘tougher and deeper’ than Thatcher’s cuts. Alan Johnson and Ed Miliband are taking people for fools and have lost all credibility in Scotland
“These comments raise serious questions for Iain Gray. Does he back his party’s Shadow Chancellor in advocating the worst cuts since World War Two – a plan which would endanger the Scottish recovery and destroy Scottish jobs – or will he back the kind of approach set out in the Joint Declaration of the three devolved administrations, including Labour-led Wales, in opposing early cuts which are worse than Thatcher’s?
“With the Lib Dems having sold out to a Tory Prime Minister, and Labour calling for Thatcherite cuts, at the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election only the SNP will speak up in Scotland’s best interests.”
ENDS
Notes:
Alan Johnson backs Alistair Darling’s deficit reduction timetable (a plan Alistair Darling described as “tougher and deeper” than Thatcher’s)
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