David Cameron last night launched his most withering attack yet on the UK Government, claiming it had been "corrupted by power" and that the longer Gordon Brown remained in office, the worse the British economy would get.
David Cameron last night launched his most withering attack yet on the UK Government, claiming it had been "corrupted by power" and that the longer Gordon Brown remained in office, the worse the British economy would get.
In the harshest passage of his New Year message, the Conservative leader said: "The Prime Minister tells us to find our blitz spirit when he is the one dropping the bombs - the tax and debt bombshells that are taking Britain to the brink of bankruptcy."
In another remarkable section, Mr Cameron likened himself to the Roman emperor Hadrian - famous for building the 73-mile wall to keep the marauding Scottish forebears out of Roman-run Britannia.
The Tory leader, explaining how post-Labour his government would build a strong and responsible society, said: "The Emperor Hadrian, when asked how Rome would be rebuilt after a devastating fire, replied: Brick by brick, my citizens, brick by brick'."
Last night, his invocation of Hadrian drew a sharp response from the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.
Angus MacNeil, the Nationalist MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, told The Herald: "Maybe Mr Cameron has looked at his northern flanks and found them weak.
"And no wonder. With people in Scotland facing a government debt of £50,000 per head compared to Norway having a surplus of £85,000 a head, people in Scotland will be questioning the need for the Union."
He added: "Clearly with those sums, Cameron is giving up on Scotland just like Emperor Hadrian did."
Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats' Scottish spokesman, said: "David Cameron has clearly accepted that his influence after the next election will stop south of the Border as the Tories are resigned to continuing to be marginal players in Scottish politics. Cameron, in comparing himself to Hadrian, makes an interesting gaffe, but it does rather demonstrate that in planning his remarks Scotland does not feature as something to be considered."
In his festive message, the Tory leader said he offered Britain's battered and broken society some "hard-edged hope", which was built on clear-sighted analysis of what had gone wrong and what was needed to put it right.
He said the important tasks for 2009 were threefold: that the lessons of "Labour's debt crisis" had to be learned so that it would never happen again; that constructive and positive ideas had to be offered to keep people in their homes and jobs; and that a positive vision of change for the future had to be set out to build "the new economy and the new society".
Mr Cameron claimed the UK Government had failed on all three counts and was taking Britain "straight back to the arrogant, big government-knows-best ideas that bankrupted our country the last time Labour were in power in the 1970s".
This, he argued, meant the choice facing the country was even starker now than in previous years "between the past and the future" with more borrowing, bigger government and state control under Labour compared to social reform, decentralisation, lower taxes and less bureaucracy under the Conservatives.
In renewing his pledges on tackling climate change, eradicating poverty and maintaining overseas aid in the face of the recession, the party leader reserved his strongest words to condemn Mr Brown's government.
"People," he insisted, "can see that Labour have been in power too long.
"They have been corrupted by power and their arrogance means they cannot now see their mistakes, let alone correct them."
Seeking to capitalise on the recent criticisms of the UK Government by a number of Church of England bishops, Mr Cameron said: "This government has lost its moral compass.
"Where is the morality in asking our children to pay off our debts? Where is the morality in encouraging people, who have already borrowed too much, to borrow a little more?
Last night, Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, hit back, saying: "This just shows that David Cameron will say anything to disguise the fact he would do nothing. Families and businesses need action and real help now, not overblown rhetoric.
"Instead of a message of hope and optimism, all we get from the Tories is yet more over-hyped cynicism."
