Field resigned in 1998 Thursday February 25,2010 A FORMER Labour minister yesterday accused Gordon Brown of leaving Britain in a crisis that “threatens our very existence”. In a withering attack, senior Labour backbencher Frank Field called for Government spending to be slashed to reduce the Treasury’s soaring debt and for benefits to be stopped after four weeks from welfare claimants who refuse to take up offers of work or training. Mr Field went on to warn that Labour’s “open border” immigration policy had raised the threat of “serious unrest on our streets”. The attack was the most scathing assessment yet of the Government’s record of failure from within Labour ranks. And his remarks will be seen as incendiary coming just weeks before the expected General Election on May 6. The Birkenhead MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Britain was in “a mega-debt crisis which threatens our very existence”. He said: “We are in a period of maximum danger for our economy, our lifestyle. “We do not know whether the rest of the world will lend us the money to maintain our debt levels and therefore slowly adjust to a lower standard of living, which is what this crisis actually means. We have to say that welfare rules are changing, there will be a job guarantee but after four weeks, if you don’t take the job guarantee, there is no benefit. We have to change attitudes on that level.” Mr Field said that Britain has been operating an “open borders policy to allow people to come from countries where wages are a fraction of the wages in this country to compete with British workers”. Mr Field was welfare minister under Tony Blair but quit after Labour shied away from introducing his proposals for curbing welfare benefits.UK NEWS
WE’RE IN CRISIS SAYS LABOUR VETERAN
By Macer Hall
Thursday, 25 February 2010
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