Author Archives: NewsHound

Into the ongoing debate over whether Labour’s actions in Government contributed to the huge national debt and record deficit weighs Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury.

As Sky News reports, Sir Nicholas identifies three departments – Defence, Health and Education, which struggled to keep control of their finances.

said spending at the Ministry of Defence under the last government was “lost control”, adding it had been put into “special measures” and ordered to report on a month-by-month basis on spending.

Sir Nicholas admitted the Department of Health and Department of Education had problems with their finances during

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Over at the New Statesman, the Lib Dems’ deputy leader Simon Hughes argues that the party is now bringing about real change, “coming of age” as a constructive force of progressive politics. Here’s an excerpt:

… huge opportunities to implement a liberal agenda in every year of this parliament. The opportunity will come this year to win the referendum for a fairer parliamentary voting system – a huge and important prize not delivered by Labour during its 13 years in power, despite manifesto pledges, and now resiled from by many Labour MPs who were elected on this very commitment only

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Writing for the Guardian earlier this week Liberal Democrat peer Matthew Oakeshott said,

It’s time to put a time limit on non-dom status, the widest tax loophole of them all. Did you know you can inherit non-dom status? Just like a hereditary peerage, it passes down the male line. You are born a non-dom and stay one – unless you disclaim it. Hereditary peers and hereditary non-doms must both go…

Cheating tax is a deep-seated, pervasive, pernicious disease that infects our body politic. Tax cheats are the Bad Society, not the “big society”. Of course it has always gone on and it’s

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Our very own Stephen Tall writes on The Guardian’s Comment is Free:

Simon is neither a stooge nor a destructive malcontent. Not only is he a loyal supporter of Nick Clegg personally – he was one of Nick’s key backers in the contest with Chris Huhne to be leader, and the two meet regularly – but he is a steadfast advocate of the coalition itself – in general, if not always in every particular. The last thing he is, or wants to be seen as, is the Lib Dems’ very own leader of the opposition. So why are his public

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Over at The Independent today, Lib Dem secretary of state for business, skills and innovation Vince Cable declares unequivocally that he will be trying to convince the Liberal Democrat conference that the Coalition’s austerity programme of cuts are right and will be fair. Here’s an excerpt:

What will matter for my party and the country at large is whether fiscal discipline and wider reforms are carried through in a spirit of fairness. Within a few months, some key steps have been taken in that direction. The first has been to lift income tax thresholds, taking low earners out of tax and

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