Category Archives: Op-eds

A couple of weeks ago, Vince got his retaliation in first by delivering a statesmanlike Budget speech.

Two weeks ahead of the Budget, tomorrow Vince gets his retaliation in first. Of course, as a former business secretary and the man who predicted the financial crash, he has a whole load of economic credibility. In comparison, when the Chancellor delivers his speech on 22 November, he’s going to look pretty amateurish compared to Vince.

He will outline the major challenges facing Phillip Hammond in light of the expected downgrades in Britain’s projected future growth, the threat posed by Brexit to any attempt to fix our economy, and what needs to be done in the budget to begin to solve these problems. He will include the Liberal Democrat long-term vision for the economy. And I’ll be very surprised if the Paradise Papers didn’t get a mention.

He will emphasise the need for a Government with economic competence and how important it is to have a fair deal for young people.

I’m kind of hoping that the main speech is slightly less heavy than the extracts released tonight. It will definitely be a credible, authoritative speech and not a wild oration, though.

Below is the whole thing. I’d be lying if I said it was sparkling, but it was full of detail and substance and you can judge it against Philip Hammond’s effort. .

As Leader of the Liberal Democrats, it is one of my responsibilities to give a serious Lib Dem analysis of the economics around the Budget, and to present an alternative.

I have recently been returned to Parliament from exile.

One of my regrets, however, is that the previous competition between the parties on economic competence no longer exists.

The likes of Gordon Brown, George Osborne, Ed Balls and Oliver Letwin were all serious players and thinkers even if I often disagreed with them.

Now, the economy – pivotal still to people’s lives – has been relegated to the margins of political debate.

The June election produced minimal discussion of economic policy.

The Conservatives didn’t produce any economic numbers in their manifesto.

Labour did, but as the IFS caustically pointed out at the time, there was a strong element of fantasy.

My Party did much better than our rivals at the hands of the IFS and serious commentators at the FT and The Economist but few noticed. And, now, economic debate is drowned out by the politics of Brexit and an unstable government.

Yet this is an unusually important and difficult budget.

The Chancellor has foresworn the use of a second budget, traditionally used to correct the mistakes in the first.

And the potential for a massive, if unquantifiable, economic shock from an unsatisfactory deal – or, even, ‘no deal’ is palpable.

Brexit hangs over the forecasts.

The environment of radical uncertainty is already spooking business investment and depressing growth, including the growth in government revenue.

I want, then, to set out some analysis of where we are and some ideas for where the Liberal Democrats think Britain could and should go.

Our focus is on freeing up capital spending to build the homes and infrastructure the country needs, on reviving the NHS with a targeted injection of cash, and on giving a leg up to young people with a learning account as they begin their working lives.