The Labour leader said: “I’m appalled by the idea that there are going to be strikes to disrupt the royal wedding. That’s absolutely the wrong thing for the trade unions to do. Strikes are a last resort and a sign of failure on both sides. They are not the way you change a government. The way you change a government is through the ballot box. What we are not going to do under my leadership is go back to the heroic failures of the 1980s.”
But despite some initial fiery rhetoric from some quarters, trade unions such as ASLEF and Unite have played down the prospect of such strikes. Leading unions are due to confer before the end of this month to co-ordinate their reaction to the Government’s programme of cuts, pay freezes and job losses.
Mr Miliband has been trying to walk a tight line between distancing himself from his predecessor’s perceived failures, while saying he communicates regularly with Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Neil Kinnock.
He said Labour has “a job to do to win back economic credibility” following the financial crisis while challenging the coalition’s misrepresentation of government borrowing.
Borrowing had, in reality, been just 2 per cent of national income and manageable. That was changed by the banking bailout and the drop in tax receipts which pushed the deficit above 10 per cent.
