Because, to be blunt, for electoral reasons it is viewed as desirable that as much of the tax cuts as possible should be directed towards the middle class.

Of course it is being sold as a measure to benefit the poor, but obviously cutting the basic rate of income tax is just about the most inefficient way of doing that.

In other words, the new mantra is that it’s fine to redistribute wealth, provided we’re redistributing it towards, not away from, the middle class.

Presented by the Mirror thus:
“Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg will be scrambling to avoid an embarrassing defeat over his tax proposals today.

Mr Clegg was forced to rush out plans to hit the super-rich with £12billion taxes as rank and file members at the Bournemouth conference threatened to vote down an economic package.”

Surprising in a way, but I suppose the press can be forgiven some confusion, considering how much confusion the leadership is generating.

I see that elsewhere Simon Hughes is suggesting as a “ball-park figure” that £15bn of the £20bn planned (or rather not-yet-planned) public spending cuts could be reallocated, while £5bn could go to tax cuts.

What would that be worth? Another 1p or so off the basic rate of income tax?

Some of the papers are reporting that £12bn of new taxes on the rich are now being proposed.

Can anyone “in the know” explain whether this is accurate and, if so, how it impinges on the debate about the £20bn of public spending cuts?

According to the article in the Sunday Telegraph:
Asked whether he meant that he would go further than the 4p cut he [Clegg] said: “Yes.”

Help me out here, people. I gather from picking up various bits and pieces, that:

(a) the collective sum of press reportage has it that we have now pledged tax cuts beyond the reduction to 16p

(b) that this interpretation is actually not unreasonable given what Clegg has at certain points said and that therefore

(c) much depends on whether you choose to put emphasis on certain highlighted sentences (and there is a fair argument that if our messaging is right is simply shouldn’t be possible for the press to pick out sentences to misinterpret in this way)

Therefore it seems to me that we have three possible problems:

(a) Clegg is trying to get us to pledge actual tax cuts, with no qualifications, no by-your-leaves, and no “if we can afford its”

OR

(b) our press office and/or our message people are incompetent. Yes, the press are misinterpreting where they can, but that really shouldn’t be a surprise to us. The position remains that we’re pledged to 16p and pledged to further cuts *if we can afford it* – which was precisely and exactly what Clegg said in his speech at Liverpool and it passed without a murmur among the press.

Can I have a straw poll at this point? Who favours (a) and who (b)? Or have I omitted option (c)?

Placing those selective quotes back in context reveals a subtext about our ongoing discussion on how exactly we need to balance competing aims and methodologies.

All differences can be resolved through reconciliation of oppositites, though we have as yet failed to find the precise phrasiology which satisfies each side of the equation.

In the meantime, why not help out by providing your suggestions instead of sitting there carping away.

I think TeamClegg could help themselves by alluding to metaphor more often – such as ‘we are entering choppy waters…’.

What’s your advice to the captain? ‘All hands to the pumps to stop the ship from capsizing’? ‘Let’s set ourselves on an even keel before we tack into the eye of the storm’?

Whatever you plump for you must accept it unsettles the crew to spread dissent among the ranks by starting an argument when we need to be getting on with our job of trimming the sails, plotting the course and keeping a firm grip on the rudder.

You really don’t think there’s any contradiction between saying on the one hand (repeatedly) that the “vast bulk” of £20bn will fund tax cuts, and on the other that none of the £20bn at all may be available for tax cuts?

Sometimes I have great difficulty in believing you’re for real.

There are no ‘guarantees’ and nobody on our side has made any, so you’re criticism of the party is empty.

Our desire to make adjustments to differential tax rates means making cuts in some areas so that we can reprioritise spending in other areas. Once this has been successfully achieved the suffocating burden placed on citizens and companies who are struggling to make ends meet can be lifted.

It is as Clegg made very clear, very simple.

How large any reductions in tax are for the the sectors we feel are in greater need is entirely dependant on how the calculations balance themselves out once the final figures are in.

It doesn’t mean anything is impossible, just that ‘the devil is in the detail’, just as with everything else.

It is simply rash to expect to be able to place exact figures on our proposals at this stage, as circumstances will inevitably change. But neither does that mean our proposals are reckless.

In fact I think the indications we are showing are highly realistic and emminently sensible.

We do not face a choice between the conservative option of doing nothing while promising nothing or the Labour option of failing at everything while promising the world. We stand for making small promises and making gradual incremental changes which will fulfill our promises with the the view to improving the situation for everybody.

The fact is that Labour’s sums don’t add up and the Conservatives aren’t showing us any sums at this moment in time. All we are saying is that there are a variety of different factors, all of which must be taken into account before it is possible to get to grips with the budgeting for the nations finances.

We don’t need much in the way of additional artificial stimulus to get our economy working again, we only need to progressively liberate each sector in order to let everybody get on with our natural daily lives.

But Paul Holmes, MP for Chesterfield, and Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, together with two former policy directors, Richard Grayson and Duncan Brack, have tabled an amendment asking the party to retreat on the tax cut promise.

“Rather than cut taxes, there are other things that the public would like us to spend our savings on such as abolishing prescription charges or on Alzheimer’s drugs.”

Which then gave the interviewer an opportunity to stop doing her job properly and try to grab a headline for her editor …”

Not for the first time, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

If it were really true that money would go to tax cuts after our spending priorities are fulfilled then it would obviously follow that we couldn’t guarantee tax cuts, just as Ed Davey had previously said.

And as I indicated, Nick Clegg actually interrupted the interviewer to say this. That’s not to say he was necessarily thinking about what he was saying, of course.

correct response: Of course we can. It depends on the exact circumstances.

“Interviewer: – even your own activists don’t fully understand your policy.

Clegg: Well, I think we’re starting to split hairs, frankly.

Interviewer: Well we need to make it clear, don’t we? Because if your activists don’t understand then the voters certainly won’t.”

…like voters understand exactly everything each party stands for when they come to vote!

Clegg was perfectly correct in everything except the few words he used to disagree with the interviewer.

Which then gave the interviewer an opportunity to stop doing her job properly and try to grab a headline for her editor, which is exactly what has happened since. Not that I’m complaining though, because all publicity is good publicity etc etc.

If you really think this is about journalists being selective, I think it’s worth posting an extract from Clegg’s Radio 4 interview last Sunday in which, under pressure from the interviewer, he accepted that there might not be any money from the £20bn left over from tax cuts.

Bear in mind that in two separate newspaper interviews – one published before that radio interview, and the other today – he is quoted (in quotation marks) as saying that the “vast bulk” of that money would go into tax cuts.
__________

Interviewer: You’ve also said, haven’t you, that you’ll be cutting 20 billion from public spending, so how much of that if any will go towards funding the 4p cut?

Clegg: Well, I’ve always said of course I can’t cross all the ts and dot all the is now nor should any [mumble] party can be in that position until we know the full state of affairs come the next general election. What I am saying is that if we can meet our spending priorities and we have money to spare I don’t think we should be looking around simply to find new ways of spending what is left. We should be providing further tax cuts to people on low and middle incomes. …

Interviewer: There is some confusion over this. At the briefing about your conference that I attended this week Ed Davey, your spokesman, said that the £20bn saved from the public sector would be reallocated to Lib Dem spending commitments with anything left over going in tax cuts and yet in the Sunday Telegraph today you say the vast bulk of the £20bn cut from public spending will be ploughed into tax cuts for middle earners. So which is it?

Clegg: I think it’s that the money will be used to meet the spending priorities we’ve identified by the general election, and the remainder will be used to cut taxes.

Interviewer: But you can’t do both, can you? [Interviewer (mis)quotes a comment on a blog] I can’t fathom why Ed Davey said something different to Clegg four days ago. That the first priority would be to divert savings to Lib Dem spending priorities and that the party can’t guarantee net tax cuts. Now -

Clegg [over interviewer]: Of course we can’t, of course we can’t.

Interviewer: – even your own activists don’t fully understand your policy.

Clegg: Well, I think we’re starting to split hairs, frankly.

Interviewer: Well we need to make it clear, don’t we? Because if your activists don’t understand then the voters certainly won’t.

Clegg: Well, dare I say it? The blogosphere can get itself quite excited about what are, to all intents and purposes, details. The position is actually quite simple. It’s as I just stated, but I’ll state it again, which is that the money which we are identifying through looking at areas of government expenditure we think is not being well spent or is being inefficiently spent [or doesn't?] needs to be spent will in first instance be used to fulfil our spending priorities, but the money that is left over, if you like, will be handed back through tax cuts. Exactly what proportion that represents of that 20 billion I simply can’t tell you. I obviously can’t.

If racist hordes are willing to vote for us because they’ve seen the light it doesn’t make us racists and it won’t make us start pandering to extreme views – I think being open-minded enough to give such people the benefit of the doubt is the only way to give them the space to reform their views and improve their outlook. It’s called redemption.

I’m not worried that different journalists have selective hearing and present our party in different lights – it’s only natural. It is also only natural that many of our activists have different views on how all of this reflects on our party.

At this stage before a general election it is a good thing that there is some leeway for different interpretation of exactly how we would institute our ideas.

We will need some flexibility in our approach to have space for adjustment, especially if the economy worsens between now and then (as it is predicted to do so from the current outlook) and it is absolutely prudent to account for all contingencies – which is something Labour has given up trying to do.

However it is also true that we have done more than the Conservatives in providing a basic outline of what we would do and how we would go about doing it.

I don’t know why “radical” seems to equate to high public spending.

I don’t think there’s just a perception that New Labour has wasted a lot of money, I think it’s a reality.

The argument that we shouldn’t carve out a distinctive position because everyone knows we won’t be in government is just bizarre. The fact that we are the 3rd party, with only an infintesimally small chance of winning the next election, makes carving out a distinctive identity more important, not less.

Oranjepan: “If it means more people vote for us and we win more seats, I’m not particularly bothered how outsiders interpret anything we or our leader have to say.” Well hey, you’ve really set me thinking! What about all those hordes of vicious racists out there, just looking for someone to vote for? Let’s pull out the dog-whistle, and see if we can get them on our side as well! Moral principles? They’re SO last century!

James Graham: Correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that your biggest concern is that all this is being done in a disorganised and unprofessional way. Well, I see the point. However, my greatest fear is that it is, in fact, being organised very carefully – and that we would all be shocked if we knew the ultimate destination that is being planned for us.

The cancer drug issue deepens my worries. If you want to get more power for the rich, then speaking up for dying cancer patients is, of course, pretty much unbeatable as a way of garnering sympathy. However, the NHS drug bill is huge. Let me quote a Tory, Andrew Lansley, whose sense of social justice seems to be way ahead of Clegg’s. Lansley said “If the NHS could simply exclude treatments and expect patients to pay up, the values of the NHS could be progressively undermined.” Given this dilemma, why has Clegg actively chosen to intervene in favour of a two-tier system, while signalling reduced NHS funding?

Where are we heading for? Palinland?