During the last economic slowdown in the 1990s, the Tories slashed infrastructure investment. I am determined not to make that mistake.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
To those who say Britain cannot afford to invest in infrastructure, I say we cannot afford not to invest in our future.
Previous governments, particularly the one before I took over, mismanaged the economy quite badly.
I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in portacabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.
I think the Tories are doing - and are intent on doing - damage to things I hold dear.
Every time in this century we've lowered the tax rates across the board, on employment, on saving, investment and risk-taking in this economy, revenues went up, not down.
In the 1980s and 1990s, radical change in economic policies fostered by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put the brakes on government planning and ushered in a new free-market supply-side era and a two-decade boom. That model has been abandoned in the new century. This must be reversed.
I'm not going to be reduced to the position of being the implementer of Tory cuts in the North.
Infrastructure is one of the core responsibilities of government and one that cannot be shortchanged by other controversial spending. I believe investment in infrastructure pays dividends for decades and is a wise investment of taxpayer dollars.
People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.
The global economy is spluttering back into life. The Tories would have left it to choke to death.