Conservatives launch new poster ahead of the Labour Party Conference in Manchester

You read it on ConHome or my blog first. The Conservative Party launches its first attack on Labour this weekend and it focuses on the Institute for Fiscal Studies' estimates that Labour would borrow £200 billion more than the Conservatives. That's £3,200 more debt for every person in the country. Con HQ have gone for an adaptation of the iconic Labour's not working poster (from Margaret Thatcher's 1979 campaign) rather than the Labour's tax bombshell campaign (from John Major and Norman Lamont in 1992).

Commenting on the campaign, Tory Chairman Grant Shapps commented:

"Labour isn't learning. They still think we can borrow our way out of the debt crisis. Their plans would mean borrowing over £200 billion more. They would shackle every person in this country with £3,200 more debt - over and above the debt they already ran up when they were in government. More spending, more borrowing, more debt - Labour isn't learning."

An ad van bearing the poster will be touring Manchester from tomorrow - to greet Labour conference goers as they arrive in the city.

Calculations by the independent think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, estimate that if Labour were in power, and the Coalition Government had not made the tough decisions it has, our country would be borrowing over £200billion more by 2016-17.*

This equates to shackling every person in the UK to £3,200 more debt. And this staggering figure is in addition to the debt they already ran up when they were in government.

* The IFS have estimated what the level of borrowing would be under the plans inherited by the Government from Labour (the Darling Plan) given more recent economic forecasts. The IFS show that ‘in the absence of additional fiscal tightening announced since the general election’ by 2016-17 borrowing and debt would be £201billion higher than under Government plans (IFS, Green Budget 2012, 1 February 2012, Table 3.1, p. 57).