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Pre-Budget Report

The Conservative party, alone in the world, is trying to make out that, somehow, nowhere else in the world is affected by any of the problems of the past 12 months, but I have made it clear on many occasions that, over the past 10 years, we have built up an extremely strong economy. More people are in work. We have been able to do more to help people, particularly those who lost out in the Conservative years, and I have been able to announce more help today. Of course, I will accept responsibility for anything that I am charged with; but if the Conservative party wants to come up with solutions to today's problems, it might at least start by understanding what the problems are, and a lot of the problems emanate from the credit crunch.