Isle of Wight Labour

Press Release - 18th January 2010

Labour PPC ACCUSES LIB-DEMS OF “BIGGEST U-TURN IN POLITICAL MEMORY”

Speaking to party members, Labour's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Mark Chiverton,
this week accused the Liberal Democrats of engaging in one of the biggest u-turns in
political memory as their national leadership ditched a number of previously much vaunted
key spending pledges. A number of these commitments had been highlighted in a
prominent County Press advertisement placed by the Lib Dem PPC as a New
Year's message to readers.

In announcing his Party's latest policy change Lib Dem Leader, Nick Clegg gave notice that
longstanding commitments such as free personal care for the old and disabled, as well as
the scrapping of tuition fees would either be put on long-term hold or abandoned
altogether. In addition, existing pledges of free childcare and a "Citizen's Pension" have
also been ditched.

" The Lib Dems seem increasingly desperate to outbid the Tories in an effort to compete
over who can cut public services the most" said Mr Chiverton-who in 2005 achieved the
highest vote for Labour on the Island for 35 years. "Their Party Leader last week dismissed
long-held, and previously loudly trumpeted, political commitments as merely being a
shopping list of pledges to voters and declared that he wasn't going to buy their favours
with cheap trinkets. So what was Mrs Wareham's advert doing just 3 weeks ago?
Particularly her claim that tuition fees should be scrapped - a policy now publicly
abandoned by her national leadership! We're all used to the Lib Dems facing several ways
at once but this latest example simply takes the breath away!"

Mr Chiverton reiterated that Labour remains the only genuine alternative to the Tories and
said that one of his own central campaign themes will be that investment in schools,
childcare, health and care for the elderly would all be put at risk by the Tories and the
Liberal Democrats.

Contact: Mark Chiverton, Tel: 07973 920749

Or Cllr Geoff Lumley, Tel: 07989 234427