Ed Miliband speech on economic reforms

Ed Miliband speech on economic reforms; ENGLAND: West Midlands: Birmingham: INT Ed Miliband MP (Labour Leader) along as entering room Ed Miliband MP (Labour Leader) speech SOT **CHECK TRANSCRIPT AGAINST DELIVERY** - It’s great to be in Birmingham today. / And where better to talk about Britain’s economic future than here? / The city of Joseph Chamberlain. / The heart of Britain’s industrial revolution. / The beginning of our modern prosperity. / Today, I want to talk to you about what the challenge of prosperity means today. / In particular, how we tackle the cost-of-living crisis and build an economy that truly works for your living standards and your future. / I want to explain why the cost-of-living crisis is such a huge challenge. / I want to say why it is happening. / Explain why this Government’s approach can never come close to resolving it. / And I will set out Labour’s plans for dealing with this crisis. / Helping businesses create more not fewer of the middle income, private sector jobs that are crucial to overcoming this crisis. / And we will do that by devolving more power to the great cities and towns of our country. / The cost-of-living crisis / Since I became leader of the Labour Party, I have been setting out how we will tackle the cost-of-living crisis. / On the first day I became leader, I talked about the “squeezed middle”. / Last September in my Party Conference speech, you may remember I said that while a rising tide used to lift all boats, now it only seems to lift the yachts. / The vital link between the wealth of the country as a whole and people’s family finances had been broken. / You see, look back to the 1980s and 1990s: for each extra percentage added to economic growth, we saw wages of middle-income Britain keep pace. / Many of us will remember the results of that. / The growing prosperity of the country often reflected in people’s own lives. / Earning that bit more. / Expecting better years ahead. / Able to...