Cameron assault on Labour as the 2015 battlelines are drawn

The Prime Minister told delegates in Manchester the “crazy” approach set out by Labour leader Ed Miliband last week would cost Britain vital jobs and investment.

Attacking Mr Miliband’s plan to reverse a proposed cut in corporation tax in order to fund a reduction in business rates for 1.5m small firms, Mr Cameron warned big business would be driven away from investing in Britain.

“Last week Labour proposed to put up corporation tax on our biggest and most successful employers,” he said. “That is just about the most damaging, nonsensical, twisted economic policy you could possibly come up with.

“I know that bashing business might play to a Labour audience, but it’s crazy for our country.”

Risking criticism that he is now allowing Labour to set the agenda, the Prime Minister addressed Mr Miliband’s proposals again and again over the course of his 49-minute speech.

He dismissed the Labour leader’s claim that Mr Cameron’s frequent references to “the global race” in fact represents a “race to the bottom” against low-wage economies such as India and China, and one that will only result in lower living standards for British workers.

This, Mr Cameron insisted, was plain wrong.

“Those countries are becoming our customers,” he said. “We have got to compete with California on innovation; Germany on high-end manufacturing; Asia on finance and technology.”

He added that global companies looking to set up new bases can choose “anywhere in the world”, and that Britain must offer competitive tax bands in order to attract them.

“If those taxes are higher here than elsewhere, they don’t come here,” Mr Cameron said. “And if they don’t come here, we don’t get those jobs. Do you get that, Labour? British people don’t get those jobs.”

Acknowledging Labour is now seeking to shift the argument away from the economy and onto the squeeze on people’s incomes, Mr Cameron said living standards could never improve without first fixing the nation’s finances.

“We still haven’t finished paying for Labour’s debt crisis,” he said.

“If anyone thinks that’s over, done, dealt with – they’re living in a fantasy land. After three years of cuts, we still have one of the biggest deficits in the world.”

He went on: “Labour have stopped talking about the debt crisis and now they talk about the cost of living crisis. As if one wasn’t directly related to the other.

“If you want to know what happens if you don’t deal with a debt crisis, and how it affects the cost of living, just go and ask the Greeks.”

There were long passages on education and welfare, considered by the Tories to be their two most successful policy areas, with Mr Cameron telling voters they “have every right to be angry” over the state of the benefits system.

He also used the Mid-Staffs hospital scandal to attack Labour’s record on the NHS, speaking of patients “drinking out of dirty vases” and “grandparents lying filthy and unwashed for days”.

“Who allowed that to happen?” the Prime Minister asked. “It was Labour – and don’t you dare lecture anyone on the NHS again.”

There was also a tribute to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s “greatest-ever peacetime Prime Minister”.

Mr Cameron’s final pitch was a plea to the British public to allow him to “finish the job we started” by returning a Tory Government in 2015. “Not just fixing the mess we inherited,” he said. “But building something better.”