Debate on the Address

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak immediately after the Prime Minister.

Let me take this opportunity to thank my constituents for re-electing me, and for re-electing me with an increased majority. Let me also thank them for the excellent local election results that we had on the same day, including two gains from the Liberal Democrats and a board swept almost clear of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

My constituents voted Labour on 6 May because they wanted the continuation of a Labour Government. That Government had brought them more jobs and more job opportunities after they had experienced some of the worst unemployment in the country under the Conservatives; a new deal against which both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats voted; a national minimum wage; winter fuel payments and bus passes for pensioners; increased money for the national health service and new hospitals; Sure Start and newly built, brand new schools; antisocial behaviour orders and more police; and housing modernisation. Those were all achievements of the Labour Government, frequently opposed by the Conservatives and/or the Liberal Democrats in the House.

As I have said, the Conservatives opposed those measures, but I expected no more of them, and I expect no more of this Conservative-dominated Government now. We know what the Conservatives are: they are our legitimate opponents, who stand for values different from those for which we stand in our party, and there is a clear dividing line between us. Now, though, we have a new phenomenon: Liberal Democrats sharing in government.

As my right hon. and hon. Friends will know, for many years—in our constituencies and nationally—the Liberal Democrats have grubbed up votes by making promises that they knew they would never have to fulfil; but now they share the responsibility of government, and will be judged not on what they say, not on what they promise, but on what they do. Hon. Members on the Opposition Benches will be watching them, and judging their performance against what they promised.

For example, in the previous two elections the Liberal Democrats conned students by promising them the earth. In their manifesto this month, they promised to

“scrap unfair university tuition fees so everyone has the chance to get a degree”.

Well, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury smashed that pledge yesterday with 10,000 fewer university places. We will be watching the Liberal Democrats on that.

We will be watching the Liberal Democrats on winter fuel payments—which the Conservatives opposed—to see whether they are continued, together with the bus passes that we introduced. We will be watching them on the national minimum wage, which the Conservatives opposed and which they said would bring mass unemployment. We will be watching them on health. Yesterday’s statement by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury included cuts in the national health service which they were too dishonest to specify. We will be watching them on policing and law and order. Both parties opposed antisocial behaviour orders—oh yes, they did—and now we will be watching to see what they do about the level of policing. The Liberal Democrats promised in their manifesto thousands more police on the beat. We shall have to see whether that is continued. We shall have to see whether they continue Sure Start. We shall have to ensure that building of brand new schools in my constituency and in those of many of my right hon. and hon. Friends will continue.

Yesterday, the Government made a statement about a fund to help build 4,000 new houses. What “help” means is not very clear, but if they keep the promise, there will be six new houses in every constituency in the country. That will scarcely help to solve the housing problem.

On international development, the Liberal Democrat manifesto promised to increase the United Kingdom’s aid budget. Yesterday, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government cut money for international development. [Hon. Members: “No.”] Oh yes—it is in the statement by the Chief Secretary. In their manifesto, the Liberal Democrats said that they would work to end the blockade of Gaza. We will be watching to see what the Government’s policy is on the middle east, because there was not a word in the Queen’s Speech about that.

I say something else to the Liberal Democrats: they will have to indulge in some internal house cleaning. Their candidate against me at the general election, Qassim Afzal, went round the constituency to mosques and other places where Muslims gather, telling people to vote against me because I am a Jew. That is what their candidate did. I was told that again and again by Muslim voters. My Muslim voters are possessed of a decency and generosity of spirit utterly alien to the Liberal Democrat candidate in my constituency, because they organised for me as they never had before and voted for me in many thousands.

The incidents that took place in my constituency as part of an anti-Semitic campaign went on and on. One of my constituents, a Muslim, told me how the Liberal Democrat candidate Qassim Afzal came to his house, which had a poster of mine in the window, and said, “You cannot have a poster in your window of a Jew. Take it down.” I told two Liberal Democrat Members before Parliament was dissolved that that was what their candidate in Gorton was doing. They were horrified. They said that they would bring it to the attention of their leadership. I do not know whether they did. I do know that their Liberal Democrat candidate, against the decency and humanity of my Muslim constituents, went on conducting an anti-Semitic campaign right through to polling day.

I say to the Liberal Democrat leader, now the Deputy Prime Minister, that if he did not know about that before, he should have done. His MPs told me that they had told him. He knows about it now. I will wait to see what he does to deal with an overtly anti-Semitic candidate who fought an anti-Semitic, and personally anti-Semitic, election campaign. If the Deputy Prime Minister does not take swift action to deal with that person, I will know that he accepts that anti-Semitism is a run-of-the-mill form of campaigning by Liberal Democrats. [Interruption.] Well, it is up to him. That is what their candidate did, disgusting thousands of Muslims in my constituency. It is up to the Liberal Democrats to decide whether those are acceptable campaigning tactics.

We in this House, as a Labour Opposition, will scrutinise everything that the Government do and we will campaign for the socialist values for which my constituents in Gorton voted and will go on voting. The people on the Government Benches are together in an unholy alliance. The electorate will tumble to that sooner or later. This Government have the seeds of their own self-destruction within them. It is for us as Labour Members of Parliament to advance policies that are for the benefit of the people and that expose the shifty foundations on which this Government are based.