Election 2010: Hope overcomes fear, despite facing a negative campaign from Labour

Labour has run a particularly negative campaign in this election, both locally and nationally. After thirteen years in power, you would expect Labour to have run a campaign based on defending its record.

However, it is clear from its campaign strategy, it has decided its record on the economy, on public service reform, on immigration and foreign policy is impossible to defend.

And this has meant the Labour party has run a campaign which has often peddled claims about Conservative policy that simply aren’t true.

It is because of this, I would like to set the record straight. If elected:

• We will protect pensions and the Pensions Credit (indeed we are proposing to increase the basic state pension, paying for this by bringing the date at which we all retire a year later forward).
• We will support Sure Start and boost it by paying for an extra 4,200 trained health visitors
• We will protect free TV licences for over 75s, and for all pensioners we will keep the fuel allowances, bus passes, free eye tests and prescriptions
• We will keep the disability living allowance and the attendance allowance
• We will back the police by cutting red tape to get more police onto the streets
• We will increase spending on the NHS and ensure that cancer patients get the drugs and treatment they need.

This list demonstrates the extent and the degree of Labour’s negative campaign.

Nonetheless, my belief is that the more negative Labour gets, the more positive we must become.

It is unfair as well as being completely unethical to try to frighten families, scare pensioners and alarm our public service workers with claims that are simply untrue.