Ed Miliband boldly cast Labour as the party of economic responsibility yesterday as he declared that he was “ready” for the top job.
The prospective prime minister unveiled Labour’s manifesto with a promise that every policy was fully costed and that every Budget would reduce the deficit.
The decision to fight the Conservatives on their favoured ground of the economy caught many pundits by surprise, and left Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy with a headache.
Mr Murphy had suggested last week that further cuts would not be required after 2016, but the claim was contradicted by senior Labour figures yesterday.
Revealed by a confident-looking Mr Miliband in Manchester, the Labour manifesto contained a small number of new policies, including raising the minimum wage to beyond £8 by 2019 and a one-year rail fare freeze paid for by ditching road schemes.
On Scotland, there was a promise that Labour would “go further” than the Smith Commission devolution package, introducing a Home Rule Bill to “give extra powers to Scotland over tax, welfare and jobs”.
The manifesto also contained a pledge on North Sea oil and gas, saying: “We will provide a long-term strategy for the industry, including more certainty on tax rates and making the most of the potential for carbon storage”.
The document, including its first page, was dominated by overall economic message and the so-called “budget responsibility lock”, ensuring the deficit was cut every year.
In a clear dig at the SNP, Mr Miliband said: “There are some parties in this election who are coming along and saying we don’t need to make any difficult decisions, there needs to be no reductions in spending at all, it’s all going to be easy. That’s not the route we’re taking.”
Labour has been behind in the polls when it comes to the economy, with the Tories having repeatedly blamed it for the 2008 financial crash, and warned that a victory for Mr Miliband next month would return the country to “chaos”.
Mr Miliband clearly hoped the manifesto pledge would improve the party’s economic credentials.
“It is a manifesto which shows Labour is not only the party of change but the party of responsibility too,” he said.
Unlike the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who launch their manifestos later this week, Labour offers no timetable for clearing the deficit, saying only that it will get national debt falling and a surplus on the current budget “as soon as possible in the next parliament”.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies think tank, said the move left voters in the dark.
“There’s a huge difference between £18billion of cuts over the next three years and no cuts. Literally we would not know what we were voting for if we were to vote for Labour,” he said.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Labour leadership had left Mr Murphy “hung out to dry”.
Chancellor George Osborne said the “small print confirms that he will run a deficit very year which means higher borrowing, more debt and higher taxes”.
Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg compared Labour’s pledge on borrowing to a bottle-a-day alcoholic “saying they have no plans to drink more vodka”.