The Constituency of Durham North West

Black hole engulfs debate

Ah ha..found her.

Durham North West Labour candidate Hilary Armstrong, the party's chief whip, said the effect would be soaring interest rates and cuts to public services - a claim strongly denied by the Tories.

She said: "The Tory promises are hollow and cannot be paid for from their own figures - no new schools, no new hospitals, no new police, as these are completely uncosted and depend upon fantasy economics.

"These are the same plans John Major tried and led to yet another Tory recession that devastated lives across the North - that is why it is important that the Tories come clean and admit that their plans mean the North would go back to the bad old Tory days of repossessions, high unemployment and misery."

We also have a rebuke from the Tories, but its not our Jamie, it is the Hexham Conservative candidate Peter Atkinson..how odd.

But Hexham Conservative candidate Peter Atkinson said: "Hilary Armstrong's negative distortions are just claptrap.

"Mortgage rates will continue to be decided by the independent Bank of England, the only cuts to public services will be to the back room boys and the bureaucrats that would never be missed.

"We Conservatives have fully costed our tax and spending plans and have found ways of putting taxpayers' money into the people's priorities. For example, we'd cut the democratically rejected North-East Regional Assembly, freeze civil service recruitment, and reform or abolish 168 quangos.

"Labour will say anything to distract from their woeful record of 75,000 manufacturing job losses in the North-East, 66 tax rises, people dying of infections caught in hospital and chaos in the immigration and asylum system."

Should it not be Jamie doing the responding to Hilary?