John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw has called on Ed Miliband to go back to the Shadow Cabinet and think again following his support for a public sector pay freeze.  He said “we are not going to be able to compete with China or India by cutting the living standards of our dinner ladies, cleaners and other low paid public sector workers.”

Mann went onto say “in meeting deficit reduction targets there needs to be proper thought on how government can reduce spending, not by attacking the lowest-paid. There is nothing fair about reducing low-paid workers' standards of living by cutting their wages every year.  There is also no economic sense with this. If they have less money to spend, that means that private businesses, shops and entrepreneurs in each local economy will be hit.

The heart of the recovery means keeping people in work and keeping the lowest-paid with real spending power. Anything that damages that will be detrimental to the UK national interest.

I know that this has been the start of the process for Miliband, but he needs to get a move on, stop doing things in isolation and start putting real flesh on the bones of Labour’s economic strategy.”