2 Big Stories
Clegg faces frontbench dissent on cuts
The Independent reports:
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg faced a major test of his authority tonight [Tuesday] as his own frontbenchers stepped up criticism of his plans for public spending cuts.
One senior Lib Dem MP even suggested Mr Clegg had still to prove himself as leader and needed to listen more to activists’ concerns.
French police clear Calais “Jungle”
The Times says:
French police moved to clear migrants out of their makeshift camp in Calais today amid screams, tears and fights with protesters.
Scuffles broke out as the camp, known as “the Jungle”, was emptied in an intervention ordered by the French Government.
Police said afterwards that they had arrested 278 people, 132 of them under the age of 18. It was not clear whether this figure included earlier arrests. The operation began at daybreak as the 150 or so Afghans remaining in the camp gathered around a fire under the glare of television cameras.
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12 Comments
Do these “frontbenchers” have a big pile of money somewhere they haven’t told us about? Or are they just engaging in wishful thinking?
Are media commentators just stupid, or do they do it deliberately to damage us? A golden rule seems to be that whenever they are unanimous in urging one path of action on us, it is the wrong one, and once we have messed up by taking their advice, they will pompously come back and tell us so, omitting to mention that actually it is they who so pushed us down that way.
Isn’t Simon Jenkins a classic of this? Back in the 1980s, the media were unanimous in telling us the Liberal Party was all silly people with silly policies adopted because they didn’t care for power, and we should drop all that and let the SDP take us over because they were sensible people with sensible policies who knew what was wanted to win votes and gain power. So now here is Mr Jenkins telling us we should have stayed as we were, ignoring the fact that it was the likes of Mr Jenkins who forced us to go the way he now tells us was a mistake.
There is a touch of this too in Vernon Bogdanor in the same paper. He notes disillusionment with the main political parties coming from the big decline in membership. But was it not these media pontificators telling us not that long ago that the problem with political parties was all these activists, and the parties should not bother with those and instead use the know-how of professional politicians in Parliament and professional marketing people to appeal over the heads of these useless activists in order to gain votes?
Now then, we find Mr Clegg, whom media commentators were almost unanimous in urging we must have as our leader on the grounds he was so much more charismatic and politically astute than anyone else in the party, being told his problem is he rushes ahead and says things without consulting with his party. Well yes, but wasn’t it media commentators who were unanimous in telling us that sort of behaviour was the mark of a good leader?
“Do these “frontbenchers” have a big pile of money somewhere they haven’t told us about? Or are they just engaging in wishful thinking?”
Does it not strike you as at all strange that exactly one year ago Clegg and Cable were calling for “big permanent tax cuts” – to be achieved without any detriment to public services. And of course those who questioned the wisdom of that were viewed as subversives who had to be slapped down in no uncertain terms.
Now, just a year later, we are told that there is no money for anything – that we need “savage cuts” in public spending, that policy commitments made as recently as Easter must be dropped. And anyone who doesn’t fall into line needs to “grow up”, apparently.
When do you think Clegg and Cable got it completely wrong? A year ago or now?
@Herbert brown, I don’t support the savage cuts comment or possible dropping of the scrapping of tuition fees but have you noticed the massive deterioration in the government’s finances in the last year? Tax receipts are massively down and welfare payments up. So it is perfectly possible that a year ago there were cuts available without affecting public services but now the government finances are such that even these cuts might not be enough (although I would argue in that case we need to look at increasing tax receipts by creating jobs and/or tax rises)
“… have you noticed the massive deterioration in the government’s finances in the last year?”
You speak as though something unexpected has happened in the last year. Of course that’s not the case.
The justification given last year for tax cuts was precisely that the economy needed to be boosted by putting more money into people’s pockets. That was also why Vince Cable called for a massive increase in public spending funded by borrowing to give the economy a “fiscal stimulus”.
What’s changed is the political climate. Last year drastic measures to boost the economy were all the rage, so that’s what Cable called for. This year drastic measures to tackle government debt are all the rage, so Cable has followed suit. I can quite easily believe it will be something else next year.
Herbert, the sheer scale of the increase in public was not widely anticipated. There were gasps in the House of Commons and in my house during the last budget speech as the numbers were read out.
“the sheer scale of the increase in public was not widely anticipated.”
It’s all very well saying that, but I think it was obvious to most people by this time last year that Clegg’s idea of cutting £20bn painlessly from public spending and giving away most of the money in tax cuts was an absolute fantasy.
I’m not particularly a fan of the policy of abolishing tuition fees – I think an enormous amount of money has been wasted on the expansion of higher education. But at least it has the merit of being a clear and distinctive policy, in contrast to the endless stream of witless gimmicks the leadership has produced over the last two years – of which Cable’s “mansion tax” is only the latest and most nonsensical.
Cutting costs does not equal a reduction in public services. In fact, I don’t believe any of the ‘savage’ cuts planned would result in that at all. Vince Cable’s big list of things to axe are all things like excessive salaries for the overpaid and Labour pet projects that do nobody any good. And in fact, cutting taxes (for the less rich) is also a central part of the plan. So no, there has been no change in direction from last year. The scope of the affordable tax cuts has changed, as has the way that the proposals are presented to the public, but it’s still the same basic proposal with a few of the numbers adjusted.
It’s the Tories who want to cut public services to save money. Lib Dem wants to cut gratuitous wastes of money.
“So no, there has been no change in direction from last year.”
Simply astonishing.
Herbert,
I fear that Andrew Suffield has a point. Much might seem to have changed since last year, but much has not.
Last year, the excuses for slash-and-burn Orange Bookery were that it would enable us to hand out loads of dosh to a grateful nation. This year, the excuses for slash-and-burn Orange Bookery were that economic necessity makes it imperative to pull back loads of dosh into the public coffers. In both years, the excuses were whatever could be dreamt up to sound vaguely plausible at the time. In both years, bounce tactics were employed, with a rapid ratcheting-upward of rhetoric at Conference time.
Perhaps the main thing that has really changed is that this party is no longer wiling to be bounced. We don’t need to be lectured on economic responsibility by “savages”, or by back-of-the-envelope tax planners. We know about realism, and we are happy to include cutting out waste as one of our planks of policy. But we are appalled by those who would suggest that it is our main reason for existence. Crucially, we are determined not to provide cover for the Tories to dismantle state services and promote inequality.
And perhaps, after today – we now have a leader who can truly take these lessons on board, and thereby restore our fortunes.
Cutting costs does not equal a reduction in public services. In fact, I don’t believe any of the ’savage’ cuts planned would result in that at all.
If they didn’t hurt, they wouldn’t be “savage”.
Sure, we can very much hope to find wasteful things to cut out, though did we factor in the dole payments to all those axed bureaucrats? Experience tells me, however, that “there must be wasteful bureaucracy you can cut, here’s a 10% budget cut, go and find it” usually means find something that can be cut and won’t hurt today – never mind it will cost more a few years down the line.
The private sector tells us that high salaries for those at the top is all very valuable because it will attract the best people blah-de-blah. If they are right, surely they will agree to pay more tax, so we can attract better people and have better and more efficient government. If they are wrong, well, we know what to do ….
“Vince Cable’s big list of things to axe are all things like excessive salaries for the overpaid and Labour pet projects that do nobody any good.”
It would be interesting to know which category freezing the overall public sector pay bill comes under.