DPMQs: Trading attacks, squalidity and the long grass commission

Another Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions and another set of traded attacks. Harriet Harman has a go about the 50p tax rate and tax credit cuts. Nick Clegg lobs back this salvo:

Next month, this Government will take more than 1 million people on low pay out of paying income tax altogether. Next month, we will deliver the largest cash increase in the state pension ever. There will be no more of Labour’s 75p pension insults. Next month, thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive an uplift in the pupil premium to give them the head start in life that they never got under Labour. That is a record that I am proud of.

And the attacks don’t only come from the Labour side. We have the Tory fifth columnists. David Ruffley (Con) talked about the forthcoming House of Lords reform bill as “this rather squalid Bill” which will “undermine the primacy of this Chamber”. Why? Well, because second chamber members elected by proportional representation will be tempted to claim an “equal..mandate” of course. Perish the thought!

But my favourite bit of invective came from Labour’s Steve Rotherham:

Deputy Prime Minister, in 2008, when you used to visit Liverpool, you categorically said:

“Will I ever join a Conservative Government? No. I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to another party’s agenda.”

What do you regret the most: your betrayal on the 3,000 extra police you promised, your broken tuition fees pledge, your party’s support for the destruction of the NHS, or becoming a Tory?

This brought forward Nick Clegg at his most passionate in response:

I am proud of the fact that we have stepped up to the plate to clean up the mess the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and his party colleagues left behind after 13 years in office. It is convenient for him to airbrush out of history the fact that when his party was in government it went on bended knee to Rupert Murdoch, yet now it will not even talk to his newspapers. It also let the banks get away with blue murder, but it now wants to tax them to the hilt. The country will not forget the mess it left the rest of us to clear up.

During the session we heard the new name for the “Long Grass Commission”. I refer to the commission which will look at the West Lothian Question. It’s a bit like the Common Cold Unit. After years grappling with the problem, they will probably finally give up in about 2089. Anyway, it’s now called the “McKay Commission“. So, now you know.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

Read more by or more about , , or .
This entry was posted in Parliament.
Advert

4 Comments

  • LondonLiberal 22nd Mar '12 - 1:20pm

    still note that nick didn’t answer the question.

  • David Blake 22nd Mar '12 - 1:34pm

    And that is partly why politicians are so hated. What he said about Labour may have been true, but participation in the yah-boo politics is regrettable.

  • London Liberal – what he should have said was “I haven’t joined a Conservative Government.”

  • Nick (not Clegg) 22nd Mar '12 - 2:13pm

    “Anyway, it’s now called the “McKay Commission“. So, now you know.”

    I wonder how long it will be before someone dubs it “the McKay Mouse Commission”.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Evans
    Hi Alison. Thanks for your prompt response. It is very enlightening. Unfortunately, I think you missed one key aspect of what I was asking about. To me, the...
  • Roland
    @David - The laugh is you could see this coming. Decades back the US limited the power of computers sold to the USSR, after the wall came down we discovered in ...
  • Roland
    @David - The laugh is you could see this coming. Decades back the US limited the power of computers sold to the USSR, after the wall came down we discovered in ...
  • Katharine Pindar
    I recall that one of our ideas to raise taxes fairly was to tax company share buy-backs, and I read the other day that a big company, GKN perhaps, was just plan...
  • Peter Davies
    @Stephen Nash. Looking at that spreadsheet, I make a 5% raise in additional rate worth 8.9 bn. Aligning CGT with income tax would raise about 14 bn and increase...