Pre-Budget Report

I agree with my hon. Friend's point. When the Tories went into that general election 30 years ago, of course, they had an election manifesto. Needless to say, they did not keep to it. I have been reading it and it should be filed under fiction. The fact is that they did not keep their promises. They promised to honour the pensions system they inherited, yet practically the first thing they did was to cut the link between pensions and earnings. They promised, and I quote,""a competitive and efficient coal industry"," yet they closed it down. They promised to simplify the tax system and came up with the poll tax. They promised to make better use of training resources; they closed down the Training Agency and abolished apprenticeships. The Tories promised, and again I quote, "to master inflation"; under them, inflation ripped to record levels. In one Thatcher year, inflation hit 18 per cent. while over her whole period as Prime Minister, it averaged 7.6 per cent. a year and never fell below 3.4 per cent. They promised to make better use of NHS resources, yet they gave tax breaks for private medical insurance and left the NHS with decrepit hospitals and staff shortages. That is only a sample of what happened in response to the Tories' famous manifesto.