Labour has launched a graphic election poster, featuring an X-ray of a broken leg with a warning that the NHS will be “cut to the bone” by the Tories, as they intensify their attack on George Osborne’s “extreme” spending plans.
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, warned that the NHS cannot afford “extreme and risky Tory cuts” after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) suggested that day-to-day spending on public services could fall to its lowest level since 1938.
Balls was speaking alongside the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, at the launch of Labour’s latest election poster. It features an X-ray of a broken leg under the words: “Next time, they’ll cut to the bone.” Under the picture the poster features the words: “The NHS can’t afford the Tory cuts plan.”
Labour is returning to a central theme of its 1992 general election campaign, in which it featured a five-year-old girl called Jennifer who had to wait a year for a simple ear operation, after the OBR warned on budget day of a “rollercoaster” on public spending after the next election.
The independent fiscal watchdog said that day-to-day government spending would fall in 2016-17 and 2017-18 at a faster rate than the cuts imposed over the last five years. This would then be followed by the “biggest increase in real spending for a decade in 2019-20” – just before the general election after next.
Balls warned on budget day that the Tories were planning to introduce “eye-wateringly deep cuts”. He cited a table in one of the documents released by the OBR that showed day-to-day government spending would fall to its lowest level since 1938. The table indicated that government consumption as a share of GDP would fall from 21.59% in 2010 to 16.06% in 2018 – the lowest since 1938 when it was 13.63%.
The shadow chancellor said on Friday: “After five years of David Cameron, our health service is going backwards. Our NHS just can’t afford these extreme and risky Tory cuts. And after their broken promises on the NHS in this parliament nobody will trust what the Tories say about the NHS.”
Burnham said: “The Tories are completely silent on the NHS. They had nothing to offer it in the budget and are desperate not to talk about it during the election campaign.
“The OBR has predicted a rollercoaster ride for public services in the next parliament under these budget plans. The trouble is, the NHS is in no fit state to go on a white-knuckle ride.”
