"What is the Chancellor’s singular achievement? To deliver a budget for growth that downgrades the growth forecasts. Growth is down this year to 1.8%, and it is downgraded next year too. That did not happen by chance; it happened by choice—the Chancellor’s choice—and it was the wrong choice: to go …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"Government Members shout and jeer, Mr Deputy Speaker, as unemployment hits a 17-year high. What more do we need to know about the Conservative party?
The Chancellor also promised in his June Budget that he would deliver “low inflation”, and what has happened? Inflation has risen, month after month after …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"Why did the leader of the Liberal Democrats, now the Deputy Prime Minister, say on 7 April 2010 that we should remember that VAT is a regressive tax? How does the Secretary of State square that with the fact that he is seeking to claim from the Dispatch Box today …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"May I start by congratulating the Secretary of State? He is by my reckoning the first Liberal to open a Budget debate in peacetime since 1914. That is a remarkable honour, which we should note today...." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"I do not want to be a pedant about this, but he was not the first speaker in the day’s debate. That was the only point that I was making. The Secretary of State can accept my congratulations or not. I also want to congratulate him on something else. Today …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"I am afraid I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. The fiscal tightening may be less than the Howe Budget, but he has to look at overall conditions in the world economy. There is a reason why President Obama has written to G20 leaders ahead of the meeting this weekend …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he will say that because he wants to do good things at the Department of Energy and Climate Change—I do not doubt his good intentions—it was worth paying the price of supporting a Budget that he would have opposed before …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"I would give the right hon. Gentleman more credit if he had been more explicit about all these dangers before the election.
Interestingly, the right hon. Gentleman has been sufficiently concerned about the public finances to put pen to paper. We should take at face value the concern that he …..." Ed Miliband - View Speech
"No, at the end of the election campaign the right hon. Gentleman was offered the chance of office—and that is the sad truth of why he changed his mind...." Ed Miliband - View Speech