Drag into Tory debate about cuts is recipe for defeat

The FT reports that UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis 'punctures bid to rally round Brown' at Labour Conference. "Too many in our party think the answer to the polls is to ape the policies of the Tories, to match their cuts pound for pound. To those who say this is the only way, I say you are wrong. It’s a recipe for defeat.”

It’s not about personalities, it’s about the policies our people want to see. Instead of the debate we need to be having, about investment, taxation, regulation, we’ve been dragged into a Tory debate about spending cuts.”

It was “time to put clear red water between Labour and the parties of the right, to challenge the political consensus that the markets know best”, says Dave in the FT story http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4576b3a-ac18-11de-950b-00144feabdc0.html?catid=18&SID=115283b9fc7bd6c9e6063574e586e9c6

Delegates cheered Dave when he told Alistair Darling, the chancellor, that the best way to balance the books was to get money back from the banks, reports the FT.
Read Dave Prentis speech in full on UNISON website:
http://www.unison.co.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1587