Opposition leader Ed Miliband has laid out his criticisms of the pace of government spending cuts as he launches the Labour local election campaign.

Pushed by Today presenter Evan Davis to make his own plans explicit he said he was not "not in government" and was not "going to unveil a shadow budget on the programme".

But he argued that this did not mean there was no an alternative to government plans.

"The alternative is to halve the deficit in four years," he said, arguing there were "large differences in pace" between the coalition's budget and what Labour would do if in power.

He suggested that the last Labour government's budget had lead to growth, whereas "our economy has stalled" since the coalition came to power.

On local council issues, Mr Miliband said councils "should do all they can to protect some of the vital services they have".

"When it comes to the policy on the capping of councils and the decisions they make, this is something we are looking at."

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