I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will not collapse. I might just get a little excited.
I find speeches such as that just made by the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) exceedingly frustrating. The Government say that they want to build a fairer society, but fairer for who? Their actions certainly are not fair for the 2.5 million people seeking work and the nearly 1 million young people still being left on the scrapheap. The Chancellor says that this is a Budget for makers, doers and savers, but it does nothing for those who are making do and who, far from saving, find themselves deeper and deeper in debt.
The worst thing is the continual ridiculous comments that the global financial crash was caused by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Powerful though he is, he did not bring
down the world economy. Labour’s public investment did not cause the global credit crunch. Building new hospitals and schools and recruiting tens of thousands of extra nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers in Britain did not cause the sub-prime mortgage defaults in the USA that started the collapse of financial institutions throughout the world. It was not Labour’s public spending that triggered the world’s economic crisis but the global interdependency of reckless banking that triggered an economic meltdown in Britain and across the globe.