Ed Miliband makes election pledge to tackle the country’s deficit

Labour has taken the symbolic decision to make the first of five election pledges a commitment to cut the deficit year on year, but he refused to give “an arbitrary date” by which it will be achieved – except to promise it will be as soon as possible in the next parliament.

Ed Miliband, in a keynote speech, gave himself flexibility by stressing that the pledge applied to the current deficit and that borrowing for capital investment would be treated differently. But he said there would be no pledges in the manifesto that would require extra capital spending beyond that set out in the autumn statement .