Oh dear, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. Ed Miliband is a victim of an unexploded political time bomb left for the Tories.
Today in PMQs Ed Miliband tried to detonate the 'Train Fare' bomb. During the Labour years rail ticket prices went up above inflation year after year except for one. In their last year of power Labour capped ticket price increases. They did so by adding a clause in an agreement with the train companies to hold the ticket price rises to 1% for one year. A second clause explicitly said that the limit would only apply for one year and that the train companies could continue to raise prices afterwards. Of course, when that happened they would want to rise them even faster to make up for the year of restraint, but Labour knew that by that time that they would be out of office.
Ed Miliband tried to set off this political time bomb by blaming the current government for letting rail prices rise above the rate of inflation, but David Cameron threw the bomb straight back at him. With today's bloggosphere it is getting harder to get away with tricks like this - Guido has the truth here.
This is not the only unexploded political time bomb either:
- In the middle of the financial crisis with the biggest deficit in the western world Labour found money for a £50 rise in the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners. At the time this was described as a temporary measure, but today you will hear Labour MPs complaining that this government cut the WFA by £50 because they followed Labour's plans and restored the WFA to its previous level.
- In an attempt to stimulate the economy the Labour government introduced a scheme which gave a payment for trading in old cars which could be used to pay for a new car. When this scheme wound down new car sales fell through the floor and partially explains why growth is so slow today.
Even the record deficit was a time bomb. It was an attempt by Labour to buy their way out of an election defeat using our money. The damage to the economy and the cuts were not caused by the Coalition, they were not caused by the banks, they were not caused by the credit crunch. They were caused by political calculations about the interest of the Labour party, not the interest of the British people.
These politicians played games with our futures to save their own jobs. That is why Labour are not fit to form a government and why Ed Miliband will never be a Prime Minister.
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