With 100 days to go before the next general elections to be held on May 7, the leaders of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom have, in interviews to the broadcast media, flagged what is likely to be the top issue in their election manifestos.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has pledged to secure the future of the National Health Service (NHS) as his party’s priority, while Prime Minister David Cameron has promised that he will cut benefits for working-age people in order to fund ambitious apprenticeship schemes.
He said that the cuts would be implemented in the first few days if a government led by his party is elected. “We’re generating these jobs. People listening to this programme don’t pay their taxes to sustain people on welfare who could work,” Mr Cameron told the BBC Radio 4 programme on Tuesday.
Ed Miliband disagreed with Mr. Cameron’s claims. He told BBC Breakfast that people were £1600 worse off a year at the end of this Parliament tenure than at the beginning, promising that Labour would “better plan for working people”.
According to a poll conducted by ComRes and The Independent , the NHS will matter more to people than the economy when they decide how to vote in the general election. In a rapidly ageing population, the promise of better state-subsidised care for the elderly by the Labour party will win it considerable support.
For now, a hung Parliament remains the most likely outcome of the election according to poll surveys.
With the major parties tied, the key deciders of what a new government will look like are UKIP, the Lib Dems and the Greens, although even their support base is unstable as of now.
