The actions taken by the Labour Government have ensured that during the biggest economic crisis in more than 60 years, the number of York people claiming unemployment benefit in December 2009 was still 45 per cent less than under the last Conservative recession.

Gordon Brown was the first world leader to begin a stimulus package to stop the recession becoming a depression. On April 26, 2009, at the Conservative Spring Forum, David Cameron said: “We are against the fiscal stimulus.” It has become clear with the recent Budget that such action helped 300,000 hardworking families from losing their homes. Labour passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act to halve the deficit in four years. On January 10, Vince Cable told the Guardian that this is “a reasonable starting point.” On January 10, David Cameron told the BBC that Conservatives would “start early” and “go further”.

If they pay off the same amount as Labour just one year earlier, the Government would lose £26bn – the equivalent of half the national education budget of the entire country. This would jeopardise the recovery. The Conservatives even opposed the nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley, which was to ensure that hard-working families did not lose their savings.

David Cameron claims to support hard-working families, but instead of backing measures to help them, his Tory Party’s priority is to give a tax cut worth £200,000 to the 3,000 wealthiest estates. This will be paid for by cuts to front-line services like police and education which he is refusing to ring-fence.

What David Cameron says and what he does is totally different. The Conservatives have not changed. They called it wrong on the recession and are now calling it wrong on the recovery.

Coun James Alexander, Labour prospective Parliamentary candidate York Outer, Holgate Road, York.