Commons clash ahead of elections

Labour leader Ed Miliband has accused the Government of breaking promises made to voters
12 April 2012

David Cameron and Ed Miliband have clashed over coalition cuts as parties made a final push before crucial elections.

The Labour leader insisted the Tories and Liberal Democrats had proved that voters should not believe a word they said during the campaign.

But the Prime Minister hit back by urging voters to remember the "mess" the previous government had left when selecting councillors.

Meanwhile, the blame game already seemed to be under way between supporters of the Alternative Vote (AV), with polls suggesting a resounding No result in Thursday's referendum.

The last day of campaigning before the ballot boxes open was dominated by the clashes at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.

Mr Miliband attacked Mr Cameron over the forced retirement of veteran police officers and trebling of tuition fees to £9,000.

He also highlighted splits that saw Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne directly challenge the Prime Minister over the conduct of the anti-AV campaign during a Cabinet meeting.

"Remember what they said a year ago: Two parties working together in the national interest. Now what do we have? Two parties threatening to sue each other in their own interest. That's what's changed in the last year," Mr Miliband said.

But Mr Cameron responded: "What this coalition has done over the last year is frozen council tax, capped immigration, lifted a million people out of income tax, introduced a pupil premium, linked the pension back to earnings, cut corporation tax and set up more academies in 10 months than the last government set up in 10 years.

"And with council elections tomorrow, people should remember the mess Labour left us in and resolve themselves: Don't let Labour do to your council what they did to our country."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in