A SMALL MANIFESTO FOR THE UK ELECTIONS

I actually posted this on facebook today, but I thought I should have put it here first--

Before you vote for who you think is better at running the economy, remember some points Ed Milliband ought to be making, and the media ought to recall because it wasnt that long ago. Ignore the deficit script which has dominated the election and consider:

1. Labour did not cause the collapse. Wealthy bankers and brokers caused the crash. Gordon Brown may have 'saved' both the British and US economies.
2. He did so by finding nearly a billion pounds from the 'emergency fund' that is never used to help the poorest in this society. The only protests from Tories were that he wasnt digging deeply enough.
3. Labour, to their shame, took us into illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have cost British taxpayers somewhere between £34 and 37 billion. This money too has come from outside the precious budget, and this time too the only howls of protest from Tories was that not enough was being (borrowed) and spent.
4. The UK has NEVER been anywhere close to financial failure like Greece, though its economy was performing worse than Spain's through most of the past Con'dEm regime. Britain controls its own currency and debt, Greece doesn't.
5. Austerity is a way of transferring more money from poor to rich, of maintaining privilege, and of cutting back on social mobility. It is an excuse, not a rational policy. Were it a rational policy, the Tories would have cut borrowing, not increased it.George Osborne borrowed more in the first 4 years of his regime than Labour had in the previous 13 (source: the communist weekly, the Spectator)