Whether driven by circumstance or long-term plan, the reaction of David Cameron to the general election result has been an attempt to realign British politics around the centre-right, using the need to strike – and then keep an agreement – with the Liberal Democrats as a way to drag his party away from its more right-wing elements. Doubtless future biographers will spill much ink over what might have been had he got closer to the winning post on his own, or even past it, just as the question of how pluralistic Tony Blair would have been had he not got a landslide in 1997 is a what-if often written about.
What the 2010 negotiations and then this deal has exposed is the hollowness of some in Labour how always assumed that somehow the Liberal Democrat could only, should only, make a deal with them – as if the centre-left was the only possible show in town.
One key point they missed is that Liberal Democrat MPs and activists pretty much uniformly genuinely believe in electoral reform not only as a way of changing vote versus seat numbers but as a way of introducing a new form of doing politics. In that context, setting out your stall as only being willing to ever do a deal with one political party is political suicide – because why should that party ever given you much if you’ve already conceded that you’ll always deal with it, come what may?
That’s why although some in Labour may wish that doing a deal with the Conservatives is political suicide for the Liberal Democrats, the reality is that refusing on principle to do a deal with the Conservatives would have been political suicide for the Liberal Democrats – because what would Labour have ever had then to offer? (Even the fruitful Labour / Lib Dem talks in the late 1990s in the end foundered after some promising initial agreements on Labour knowing that there was no real alternative for the Lib Dems.)
However, looking at the bigger picture beyond who deals with whom there is a paradox. Whilst Cameron may be trying to realign politics around the centre-right, in the process the political agenda is shifting in a rather different direction.
On civil liberties, which have repeatedly been curtailed by successive governments since Roy Jenkins was the last Home Secretary to significantly increase rather the decrease our liberties, the agenda is now firmly one that should appeal to those with liberal instincts, whether outside Labour or even in Labour – at least those who aspire to the ‘progressive’ label rather than those of the David Blunkett school. For the first time in decades the political initiative is with those who want to strengthen civil liberties and it is the would-be authoritarians who are on the back foot.
Similarly on the environment, with Chris Huhne in the Cabinet and the Conservative Party leadership endorsing greener taxes, the overall policy mix of the government is looking far greener than it was under Labour.
Likewise too on political reform. Whilst Labour MPs have been rapidly ditching even their commitment to fixed-term Parliaments, the Government is moving on holding a referendum to let the public decide on changing the voting system (remember Labour’s 1997 promise?) and is pledged finally – after Labour’s 13 years of dallying – to introduce elections for the upper house.
Even on inequality, where the Government’s record so far is highly controversial, both Cameron and Clegg have clearly nailed the political colours to the mast of reducing inequality. This is not a one-off debate about the first Budget; it’s a long-term commitment of political capital which will necessitate further steps in future years. Critics of Clegg pointing out that the Government’s equality record should not be judged just on its first Budget miss the point they should be welcoming; he was in effect committing the Government repeatedly to return to the issue.
Again, the contrast with previous government is stark as there is now a growing political consensus that measures of overall inequality across the country are a key judge of how a government is doing. That is very different from previous Conservative governments and even much of the Blair years.
So on issue after issue, what we are seeing happen is the terms of political debate move in a direction which you can call liberal, progressive or centre-left as you wish. Whatever the label, what is not happening is for the debate on the environment moving rightwards, or the arguments on civil liberties moving in an authoritarian direction, or the agenda on political reform moving in a conservative direction, or the inequality agenda being ignored.
That leaves a problem with Labour – what political space does it leave for an opposition to fill – but also holds out a promise for the Liberal Democrats as on all those grounds it means the terms of political debate are moving in just the direction the party wants.
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77 Comments
Indeed, and long-term, the problem is not going to be us but for the Conservatives. As you say, much of what is happening opens the schism between the social conservatives and economic liberals in that party.
Oddly enough, that will be thrown into sharper focus as and when the economic situation improves. Conservatives run into trouble once they have stopped sorting out the economic mess and try to make social changes because they are usually on the wrong side of the argument and opinion. In addition, there is still a huge temptation within conservatives to tell people how to live their lives. Cameron is a moraliser and this will be his undoing. He has an idealised view of families and communities which simply doesn’t resonate with most other people and he can’t resist the temptation to share his social engineering ideas with the rest of us.
One of the many reasons I am a liberal is that I don’t want to be told how to live my life. Whether through the clumsy use of the State or via the moralising pulpit both Tory and Labour parties have offered their ideas on social engineering.
“Cameron is a moralizer and this will be his undoing. He has an idealized view of families and communities which simply doesn’t resonate with most other people and he can’t resist the temptation to share his social engineering ideas with the rest of us.”
With all respect, i think you will find that Cameron is far more than a ‘moralizer’. He is in fact arguably the LibDems bestest friend EVER. His goal is to build you up, not tear you down. He WANTS you to have a go at superseding Labour as THE progressive force in politics. Why ? Because he can ‘get along’ with the Libdems along an authoritarian vs. individual axis. And he trusts Clegg to keep his word.
All the LibDems have to do is stay the course until 2014/2015. If the economy is better, it’s all good. If not, it’s not good for anyone.
umm interesting we are in the centre right, heaven help us if we go any firther right.
“His goal is to build you up”
Eat you up, more like.
But, Dougf, the logical conclusion of that statement is that Cameron IS a liberal-conservative (and finds Nick Clegg a kindred spirit). The two are seeking a realignment of politics from the centre-right with a NEW liberal-conservative party replacing BOTH the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and standing (hopefully) with a semi-permanent 60-40 majority over Labour.
Some in the Lib Dems look at the CDU-FDP model as where we might be going. Perhaps they should go north of Flensburg and look at the Venstre-Konservative Folkeparti model in Denmark. In a PR system you have two recognisable blocs – one of the centre-right and one of the centre-right albeit comprising a number of parties in each.
As a liberal, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. There have been times in history where the policies of liberals have been nearer to those of Labour (the 80s and early 90s) than the Conservatives and times when we have been radically different from both (50s). Blair managed to convince a lot of people he had replaced Labour with a non-socialist party of the centre and centre-left. Cameron is trying to convince people he has replaced the Conservative Party with a progressive party of the centre-right. Neither analogy stood up to close inspection.
“One key point they missed is that Liberal Democrat MPs and activists pretty much uniformly genuinely believe in electoral reform not only as a way of changing vote versus seat numbers but as a way of introducing a new form of doing politics.”
Oh the poverty of ambition: the way we ‘do’ politics has become more important than what our ‘politics’ actually stands for !! The only explanation for such a shocking assertion !
I have been in favour of ER since I joined LCER in the late 1980’s. Primarily because I was sick of seeing 40% of the voters sticking it to the other 60% with big majorities of seats that meant ideological- some would say tyrannical- rule. But also because I was- and still am- of the belief that we have a centre -left majority in this country that believes in progressive ideas and understands that government action (contra to ‘liberty’ c.f. small state) is often- though not always- the best way to achieve a progressive agenda and the ultimate goal of such an agenda- greater equality. Equality and liberty are no always on the same side in a capitalist system as the asset, inheritance and income rich will always be able to exploit ‘freedom’ more effectively and to greater ends than the poor. In such a scenario liberty is regressive….as we are seeing.
By arguing as you do that you are in favour of any coalition just because it means two or more parties working together is astoundly naive. It is also perverse as it means standing on your head in terms of ideas- unless of course you are of that strand of ‘liberalism’ that feels at home with the Cameroons more so than the milibands.
This coalition is rapidly becoming Thatcher mark two. It is an incredible achievement by Cameron, Osborne along with their fellow travellers of Clegg-Laws. Cameron would never have been able to have articulated some of the extreme rightist measures that they coalition is now doing with almost daily regularity. Not without the ‘yellow cover’ of Lib dem human shields.
19th century Manchester Liberal versus 21st century Croslandite- that is rapidly shaping up to be the choice at the next election- and don’t count on all your MP’s (let alone supporters) voting for the former…
To be fair we aren’t actually in the 19th century unless you are one of the ranters that spouts `dickensian` at every turn.
Labour have quite frankly blown it. By not apologising and not putting forward a detailed alternative budget they are basically putting two fingers up at the idea of taking opposition seriously. And don’t forget the taxpayer pays for this choice – paying for Labour failure even when they’re not in government. Whether from the left or the right getting rid of the deficit, benefit reform and political reform are the only ways to go. I have a friend who was on HB in London – the taxpayer paid 2,400 a month for a 1 bed flat – is that really a proper use for taxpayers money?
Once the reforms are achieved and let’s hope for a much better economic future we will have choices – either go for a Swedish style balanced budget but high tax, authoritarian and generous though strict benefit system (though that will be tough with the exorbitant house price situation created by Labour) or go for a devolved, liberal, savings-first cultured `Germanic` style system (with perhaps a new party with Cameron on the right and Hughes on the left) as in Germany.
I think the latter would win that battle.
To me it no longer is whether the Lib Dems are `shafted` etc – incidentally, I don’t think they will be as long as they carry on their intellectual rigour – what matters is that we get the country out of this hole and make it fairer – that can only be done by tackling the deficit and the sooner the better.
Have any of you seen the latest LibDem poll figures? Just as I predicted, when Clegg decided to join with the Tories.
16%, and this before the real pain is felt. Looks like I may have to revise my prediction. 10% could become the baseline for the LibDems.
Rob – extreme rightist measures? I don’t see anything much in the budget or the coalition agreement that would have been out of character for a Blair-Brown government. Except for things like progress on civil liberties, taking some low earners out of income tax, … things the left ought to applaud even if Labour has always been hostile.
VAT is mildly regressive, yes – Labour preferred to put the pressure on Council Tax which is way more regressive.
I will take your ‘I have a friend’ allusion as seriously as I take similar reportagaes by that friend of ‘liberalism’ the Sun !
It’s not only that the government is cutting spending a to a ideological, as opposed to fiscal propriety, extent. They’re the biggest single customer for the private sector. Nor is it just that household well being is collapsing – although it is. The real reason is much more important and never stated: the simple fact is that there’s nothing the private sector can sell to people that can make up for the loss of the state services they really want right now and in the coming years.
-People want schools.
-people want law and order.
-People want well maintained roads.
-People want social services.
-People want the safety net the state provides.
-People want fair pensions – not ones that decline in value.
-People want to know they won’t be financially devastated by sickness.
These are all ‘progressive’ wishes and on each one the coalition- and the lib dems- are on the regressive side of the argument.
Labour are having a leadership election but are still able to mount serious attacks when they need to notwithstanding the toe curling battering of Vince cable on QT last week. I look forward to a more focussed opposition from September onwards.
The trajectory your coalition has put us all on is- at best- the Edwardian period (a 70-30 society) at worst a 19th century Victorian 90-10 small state resurrection. Not surprising as- to remind and reiterate- *19th* century classical liberalism is what the lib dem leadership believes in ! Though the majority of your party (and even more so voters) actually don’t. So who has blown it ?
“incidentally, I don’t think they will be as long as they carry on their intellectual rigour”
What on earth is “intellectually rigorous” about the way the Lib Dems are behaving? Doesn’t intellectual rigour usually imply some kind of coherence and consistency, rather than the kind of shallow opportunism and transparently dishonest self-justification we’ve seen since the election?
I assume you’re really using it as code for “right-wing/shrink-the-state/sod-the-poor” or some such set of beliefs. If so, it’s a remarkable poor choice.
“I don’t see anything much in the budget or the coalition agreement that would have been out of character for a Blair-Brown government”
Look at the thatcherite expenditure plans/ read IFS and FT analysis…and uncross your fingers PLEASE !!
Well let’s face it you don’t have to have much intellectual rigour to look good against Labour. What I’m talking about is ideas that are then worked out in policy terms – ie raising the tax threshold. What exactly are Labour doing intellectually at the moment that isn’t `spending money we don’t have` or `ignore the cuts we had in our manifesto`
Labour are having a leadership election but are still able to mount serious attacks when they need to notwithstanding the toe curling battering of Vince cable on QT last week. I look forward to a more focussed opposition from September onwards.
So do I – I might actually hear about a social democratic alternative that is fully costed and directly honest and not based on lala land economics. Until that time there is no alternative to doing down this deficit – unless you do want e the edwardian/dickensian society you talk about.
So, come on what would you have done instead – based on the 20% cut in the state and 44bn cuts that Labour were wanting – what would you have done?
“What exactly are Labour doing intellectually at the moment that isn’t `spending money we don’t have` or `ignore the cuts we had in our manifesto”
Labour aren’t in government !!!! The onus is on the coalition to prove it has made the case for the excessive cutting, welfare evisceration, planning system deregulation (so no homes get built because middle class nimbies get ‘localist’ empowerment), social, health and education front line service reductions etc etc etc
If you want labours approach read in-house economist Blanchflower or watch in house political-economy commentator Will Hutton. I don’t need to repeat them here. There is a clear economic case AGAINST what he coalition is doing that is intellectually rigorous precisely because it is not founded on ideology. Unlike Osborne and Cleggs ‘small state’ (19th century) budget…
@John
You want to know what Labour should do? Increase the higher rates of income tax to very high levels for a prespecified period; and do the same with Corporation Tax; people will accept this because they know it will end at some point; give the authorities the same rigorous powers for investigating tax avoiders and evaders as they have for investigating benefit fraud; end the distinction between tax avoidance and evasion; make hugely wealthy employers pay their fair share of National Insurance contributions and not simply place the burden of the increased contributions on workers; implement the mansion tax; increase taxes on shareholders; insist that the highest paid in the PRIVATE sector receive only twenty times the salary of the lowest paid; devise a realistic timetable for the banks to repay the £83 billion we have lent them to keep the hole in the wall machines open. That would certainly make us distinct as an opposition.
Let us just remind ourselves:
“The next four years will see public sector spending fall by 25 per cent in real terms, outside of the NHS and the international aid budget. It may be that this proves impossible to achieve: and four incidents in the twentieth century demonstrate the scale of the challenge ahead. Three periods of public spending restraint – the ‘Geddes Axe’ of 1922-23, the years following the IMF loan of 1976, and the Conservatives’ deficit reduction in the early 1990s – are all relevant here. But in none of those cases was the spending reduction more than nine per cent (the ‘Geddes Axe’, which aimed to achieve 20 per cent); the other two periods saw public spending fall by around five per cent. The Swedish and Canadian experiments of the 1990s have been closely studied in the Treasury, but it is also clear, fourth and last, that those planned spending reductions were nowhere near as draconian as the UK’s new strategy, and took place over two parliaments, not one. The British fiscal experiment of 2010-14 is much, much tougher than any of these examples.”
This is not a progressive administration. It is an ideological ‘small state’ 19th century one.
Or as ‘Tribune’ says:
“The Budget was delusional in that it is based on that old Thatcherite canard that a nation’s finances can be compared to the running of a household budget, the motivating drive behind the ideological obsession with
the achievement of a budgetary surplus. The Budget, a five-year economic plan, has one overriding purpose and that is the reduction of the state, one of the many potent truths about this package over which the Liberal Democrats are in a state of tactical denial.”
Regrettably I see too much of the Tory’s right wing agenda to agree with you about the Centre right position that you believe Cameron and Clegg are working toward. ‘Free schools’, Benefit cuts, University fees going up, British Human rights etc, these are not things I would want to see in a so-called Centre right coalition. I can’t see how inequality can be tackled by cutting benefits to the poorest in our community.
The more I read on these pages the more I can’t help thinking that the Liberal grass roots are indulging in a hand wringing, self justification exercise, whilst trying, and failing, to keep a separate identity, the electorate will see no difference whatsoever between this party and the ‘new thatcher’ Tory party by the next election, in fact many already do so.
So unless the LibDems really want to be associated with the ‘attack the poor because it’s their fault for being poor Party’ I would suggest actually fighting the more right wing policies of David Cameron and, more to the point, being seen to do so otherwise it’s the wilderness again for another lifetime, AV or not.
@Dougf
I think You’ll find that Nick Clegg is arguably the Tories ‘bestest friend EVER’ and not the other way round.
I haven’t read all of this article, I must confess, but the first paragraph or two was enough for me! Why assume you know what Labour people are thinking? There would be absoluely no reason for anybody to assume LibDems would go with Labour rather than Tory. In my experience, they usually go with Tories for preference.
In Bradford, there has been a LibDem/Tory alliance for ten years, and although Labour are now the biggest party, the LibDems have refused to abandon their Tory allies. The best they can manage is not to vote either way so, although Labour have got the majority and are now forming the Executive of the Council, it could be destroyed at any moment if the LibDems decide to force a vote of confidence with their Tory friends.
In Calderdale, there has been a Tory/LibDem alliance for years, same in many if not most Councils where there is no overall control.
Another thing I don’t understand is why everybody acts as though a coalition was a new thing. It’s the only way the LibDems will ever get power and has been commonplace throughout the country for many years. I think it’s because people either don’t know what’s going on in the real world outside Westminster or don’t care!
Rob, I don’t see how you can deem these cuts as ideological rather than driven by the fiscal situation, when the fiscal situation is so bad that Labour and the Lib Dems before the election also had very similar plans to reduce the deficit. I’ve seen the IFS figures – the curves are almost identical.
I agree with your list of things that “people want”. People also want to not pay more tax. Spending the money is the easy bit – any 10 year old running a country could do that. Raising the taxes to pay for it is the hard bit. Borrowing is only temporary. From a taxation perspective, which is the one that counts, the state is not shrinking under this government, but growing.
By the way, I forgot to say I’m a Labour supporter and there doesn’t seem to be a way to edit a post once it’s up. I do appreciate the way this site is open to everybody to comment – an indication that it’s run by real Liberals!
“the state is not shrinking under this government, but growing.”
Which part of the HMT, IFS or FT figures suggests that. If you are saying that- in practice over the coming five years under this government- it won’t be possible to shrink the size of the state (for example, because of a million plus increase in unemployment combined with continued reluctance of financial sector to provide roll over credit to SME’s means ballooning welfare bills and shrinking taxation receipts): well in that case I’d agree with you.
But an 80-20 cut V tax rule for a *one term* eradication of the *whole* of the budget deficit (without clawing back the 83bn in guarantees and bail out monies) means a smaller state is the ideological/ theoretical plan of this coalition government.
A smaller state is precisely what Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Laws believe in: possibly because neither they nor their relatives/ family have never ever had to *rely* on the state in their lives (as opposed to making ‘good PR’ use of some elements of it from time to time).
Here is Richard Murphy’s analysis in Forbes (also has the “tax research” blog which I would advise Lib Dems read rather than swallowing hook line and sinker their leaderships rhetoric):
“As a U.K.-based accountant and economist it was extraordinary to hear the demands emanating from the right-wing think tanks for cuts in government spending ever since the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats won the general election just six weeks ago. It was, however, something else to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirm the most savage round of cuts that anyone has ever attempted to impose on the United Kingdom. Most government department budgets will be cut by 25% over the coming years if Chancellor Osborne gets his way, and this is quite unprecedented. I’ve listened to budgets for more than thirty years but never before have I listened to one where all the attention has been focused on the spending and economic commentary and so little on the tax measures. Yet that was the case this time. It was the cut in spending that grabbed the headline, and the fact that so much of it seems to be coming from cuts in welfare payments. The potential for political backlash is very high. Most British families get some benefits. Many on ordinary levels of income (25,000 pounds or about $37,000 is the average U.K. annual pay) will be seeing real cuts in benefit support and increases in taxes.
For instance, the Value Added Tax (VAT) which is in effect a sales tax will rise 2.5 percentage points to 20%, a sufficient amount to ensure that many families may see their real incomes fall significantly over the next few years. If they work in the state sector–and many do–people will also be suffering a pay freeze for two years and a demand they pay more into their pension fund, and that’s if they survive the expected cull of 750,000 jobs. For these people drops in disposable income of more than 10% are very likely. The economic consequences of these cuts, which represent 80% of the whole deficit reduction package, will be subject to much debate. George Osborne obviously thinks that cutting benefits will force people out to work, but with 2.5 million already unemployed, with all the U.K.’s major export markets facing similar austerity cuts and the government itself retrenching (reducing its spending in the private sector, in which it is currently the biggest customer), it is incredibly hard to see where those new jobs will come from. In fact, I just can’t see them happening at all. Osborne admitted the short-term effect of his plan will be increased unemployment. I see it as the long-term effect as well. I foresee unemployment rising to 4 million in the U.K., a level not seen in real terms since the 1930s. In other words, this is a budget that guarantees not just a double-dip recession, but a depression, too.
In comparison the tax changes announced in the budget are modest. Osborne is giving the 90% of tax payers who only pay tax at the 20% basic rate that applies in the U.K. a bonus of up to 200 pounds or $296 each by increasing the income threshold at which taxation begins. That will cost him about 3.7 billion pounds or $5.5 billion. The VAT increase will raise about 11 billion pounds or $16.3 billion and he is going to impose a levy on banks operating out of London.
Believing that if the state cuts back, the private sector will rush in to fill the void, Osborne has announced a program of cuts which is unprecedented in its likely impact. If he’s got it wrong he will have also consigned his party and its coalition partners to the political wilderness for a generation to come. If he’s right, then the U.K.’s Labor party is out of office for the same length of time. The stakes could not be higher.”
I favour much of what you say, Mark, the civil liberties and the green agenda are points on which all Liberals should be able to agree. Managing the states finances sensibly, too, decentralising government, and rebalancing income taxation to help the worst paid and to make work pay. These are all laudable ideas and entirely compatible with Liberal Democracy.
However, I do struggle with the rise in VAT. It may be an economic necessity, but undeniably it will affect the worst paid badly, for which I think greater mitigation is needed. I would urge the government, backbench Liberal Democrat MPs and even the opposition parties to consider what measures might be employed the hardship that will be caused.
Might I suggest the following ideas:
a) raising the national minimum wage to £8.00 over the length of this parliament. An immediate rise of 50 pence would mean, at the least, that those working on the minimum wage would not be affected worse than those the second lowest income decile. Surely that is fair and compatible with the Liberal Democrats “fairness” agenda on which the party campaigned and which was warmly received by the electorate? Surely it is also compatible with Ian Duncan Smith’s aim to make work pay, in order to encourage people off welfare and into paid employment? Doesn’t it satisfy the stated agenda of all the main political parties? Furthermore, surely it would increase payments into the exchequer through income tax and national insurance, and presumably through VAT, too? I understand that there are arguments that it might price people out of work, but I suspect that there are not really that many jobs currently paying at the minimum wage and those that do are presumably predominantly staffed by immigrant labour.
b) zero rating “thrift” products. These might include clothes sold at very low prices for function rather than fashion, such trousers sold for under a tenner, shirts for under a fiver, basic unperfumed toiletries, such as shampoo at 30 pence per litre. This would help alleviate a great deal of poverty, without losing a great amount in VAT receipts. It would probably lead to a growth in trade, too, for such thrift products, creating job opportunities.
c) reconsider the idea of raising student fees for university education. Let’s face it, there are going to be tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of further unemployed, when the departmental cuts take place. Let education take up some of the slack. A better educated workforce must be good for the economy and people in education rather than on benefits must be good for society.
Apart from that, please, do restructure the economy, it certainly is necessary.
Just take care to make good the pledge to increase “fairness” in society.
@ Rob re Forbes magazine. I agree with Richard.
@ Paul.
a) I agree the minimum wage should be raised.
b) Waving VAT on thrift products, frankly I don’t see retailers raising the price on these products the extra 2 1/2% rise in VAT makes a relatively small difference to the selling price.
c) I whole heartedly agree raising tuition fees is a definite NO NO. We should be investing in our future and avoid another lost generation
@Roger Shade “I agree the minimum wage should be raised.”
I was under the impression it has been this month, not by much mind you.
Ruth Johnson wrote;
“In Bradford, there has been a LibDem/Tory alliance for ten years, and although Labour are now the biggest party, the LibDems have refused to abandon their Tory allies.”
Not so. Once Kris Hopkins went to Westminster and Anne Hawksworth took charge of the Conservative group, the local LibDems decided not to continue their coalition with the Tories (which numerically would still have given them control of the council) and thus Big Daddy Greenwood’s lot took over the council again as the largest party, though without a majority; and who’s to say in future there may be a Lib-Lab council here once again (though with admittedly with Greenwood at the helm that’s very unlikely).
My point was that, in spite of the great play Nick Clegg made about having to support the largest party in Parliament, it didn’t hold true for local government, at least not in the case of Bradford Council. As you so rightly say, personal considerations, enmities and friendships played the major part in the decisions made by the LibDems locally. It was disingenuous (at least) of Clegg to claim that he was honour-bound to go with the largest party when this is so obviously not the case.
I don’t think anybody, least of all LibDem supporters, should be under any illusion about Clegg and Cameron. They come from the same background, they went to the same school and are personally much more on the same wavelength than either would be with any of the candidates for the Labour leadership. I heard there are 23 millionaires in the Cabinet and not all of them are Tories!
@Ruth Johnson
How many public school educated millionaires would have found their way into a Labour government, by the same token, then? And which economic policies would have been fundamentally different or more fair? I think you are viewing Labour through unnecessarily rose-tinted spectacles.
A Thatcherite budget, 20% VAT, savage cuts, “free schools” (was Westminster free?), arbitrary immigration quotas, no pr, no 50% capital gains, yes nuclear, yes Trident. You lot must be wondering what you have sold your integrity and your history for. We were told that your negotiators had pulled off some kind of coup, but it looks like you have been well and truly used. You are indeed the minor party in a coalition which looks more and more like a marriage of convenience, which is totally convenient for the Tories but a potential death knell to you. Clegg has found his soul mate and will never give up the trinkets of this coupling to return as the leader of a minor but independent party. You have to decide whether to stay as part of a party moving further and further to the right or else let it be known that your principles lie elsewhere.
@Paul McKeown: on the contrary, I think you’re looking at Labour with whatever’s the opposite of rose-tinted spectacles! Have a look at the biographies of the current Shadow Cabinet: you will find lots of them were brought up on council estates, educated at comprehensive schools, serving as trade union officials – traditional Labour people. The only people who may well be millionaires are Harriet Harman, Ed Balls & Yvette Cooper, and Shaun Woodward.
As for the policies, I can’t quite understand why people are making a mystery out of something that’s not remotely mysterious. Britain has to get its deficit down from 5.4% of GDP to 3%. Labour wanted to do it gradually and by NIC and some tax increases coupled with investment in business, Tory/LibDem coalition wants to do it quickly and mostly through cuts in public spending. Those are the economic policies that would have been different and more fair.
I don’t see how anybody can justify increasing VAT which affects the poor more than the rich (as a percentage of their disposable income). I don’t know why anybody is in doubt about the differences in policy. Labour is in favour, broadly speaking, of Keynesian policies and Tory/LibDems are in favour, broadly speaking, of monetarism. What’s not to understand?
Rob, it is clear from the rest of my comment, so no need to be incredulous. The state is growing not shrinking because taxes are going up, not down. Spending funded by borrowing is only a temporary adjustment to the size of the state because ultimately that borrowing gets repaid. In the long run it is the level of taxation that counts, and that is going up.
“In the long run it is the level of taxation that counts, and that is going up.”
In the end it is the *level of employment* and the level of *’real’ output* that count: NOT taxation. Of course BOTH are boosted by state action.
I am presuming you are also signed up to the neo-conservative tea party notion that tax cuts produce more revenue than a tax rise as well?
I won’t bother to try and convince you as a simple search of the net will illuminate that little nugget of extreme right wing zealotry for other posters/ readers.
So are you an small state orange booker or a Tory troll? Or both.
Furthermore- to quote one of many senior economists:
““For an economy facing an economic downturn, the benefit of, say, increasing expenditures enormously exceeds the costs, even if the expenditures are entirely financed by deficits, and that is especially the case when the expenditures are high-return investments.” (Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties.)”
Sheffield Forgemasters anyone………
>You want to know what Labour should do? Increase the higher rates of income tax to very high levels for a prespecified period;
So why didn’t they before? And if the answer is making the banks pay, why didn’t they tackle that either? Northern Rock was what, summer 2007? Plenty of time since to bring in a bank levy, act on bonuses, if Gordon and Alistair and co had wanted to.
As I recall, they weren’t exactly in a rush to privatise N Rock (and Vince was suggesting it way before they realised it was the only option).
>-People want schools.-people want law and order.-People want well maintained roads.
But people don’t want to pay for them.
>I heard there are 23 millionaires in the Cabinet and not all of them are Tories!
So what? 1. Lib Dems aren’t socialists. 2. Remind me again of Tony Blair’s background and current financial status
>make hugely wealthy employers pay their fair share of National Insurance contributions
Lovely theory. If only the beggars didn’t tend to respond by cutting jobs, outsourcing them to India… Really not very likely the minority party in coalition would get this past the majority. ‘The jobs tax’ was a big issue for the Tories in the election campaign.
>smaller state is precisely what Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Laws believe in:
It’s what all non-socialists believe in.
Why do Labour supporters find it so hard, seemingly, to realise that Lib Dems aren’t ‘the government,’ just a small part of it, and therefore unable to do all they’d like? Or b. that Lib Dems aren’t Labour ideology supporters by another name?
And no, I don’t agree with everything in the budget, and free schools are bonkers, and telling the jobless to move is daft.
But the REAL big issue is that we need new jobs – and no one knows where they are supposed to come from, but the state can’t afford to be the only employer in town.
@ cassie sure gov shift in time from their starting position however it usually takes more than a micro second, the fact is that this Tory Government is exactly that a stark raving thatcherite Gov, it is acting like that, and the Lib Dems are part of it. Now large chunks of the peeps who voted LD didn’t vote for the type of gov they are getting so well yes they will be slightly annoyed, the rubish coming out of the leaders mouths is akin to saying we should leave Europe as it is protectionist, this is entirly consistant with the repeal of the corn laws and that was a liberal thing.
The fury at the LD will abait very shortly when thet actually disapair due to the arroagance of thinking that they are actually any different from the Tory’s they are not they are morphing into torys or will have to jump ship.
“It’s what all non-socialists believe in.”
ahem- it is what all non socialists. non-Marxists and non-social democrats believe in: which s why so many lib dems are uncomfortable.
So I guess that means we are left with liberals (in the 19th century sense); Conservatives , oh and tea party’ers.
That is in the Anglo-American world.
In Europe for example you will find that most ‘centre right’ parties are avowedly of the belief that the state does good alongside civil society and regulated markets.
You won’t find many “small state” parties of the centre right on the continent (least not ones regularly in power). FDP in Germany are the only real example- and they are incredibly unpopular at the moment…
“I don’t see how you can deem these cuts as ideological rather than driven by the fiscal situation, when the fiscal situation is so bad “/ “So, come on what would you have done instead”
The UK currently has a structural deficit of around 8.8 per cent of GDP. But this has not been due to some unfunded spending splurge since 1997, but rather because Britain has just suffered the deepest recession since the 1930s.
In 2007 on the eve of the recession the structural deficit was about 2.2 per cent of GDP, but rose because national output fell by 6.2 per cent from peak to trough. Rather than following Mr. Osborne’s advice in Opposition and rapidly reduce spending in the midst of a downturn and allow more banks to fail, the Labour government (alongside most others) chose to simultaneously maintain a stimulus program and recapitalise the banks.
The Labour administration in the last budget planned severe consolidation to bring down the size of the budget by £73bn in 2014/15 and fill 70 per cent of the structural deficit by 2016/17. This implied very serious cuts in real spending of £52bn and increases in taxation of £21bn.
By contrast, Mr. Osborne has pledged consolidation of £113bn – an additional £40 billion, which includes an extra £8bn of tax increases and £32bn of spending cuts. All supported hapily by Clegg and Co !!
These are IDEOLOGICAL cuts not cuts designed to address market worries over deficits.
The Blair/Brown Government can be summed up in a quote from Tony Blair recorded in Paddy Ashdown’s Diaries – “–the whole mass of the Tory media will be deployed against me. I don’t want that” Almost every decision Labour made over their 13 years was in anticipation of what the Tory press would say.
On finance, Labour are in total denial. They refused to spell out their cuts during the election and now they are in opposition they are still not admitting what they would have done.
And on left v right who was is who removed the 10p rate of income tax and who was it who increased the tax allowance for the low paid? Who was it who refused for 13 years to restore the link between pensions and earnings and which right wing Coalition restored it?
And finally on VAT. Someone who pays £200,000 for a Porsche will contribute £40,000 to reducing the deficit. Someone who buys new clothes for their children, will still pay no VAT. There must be more than one type of regressive tax.
“They refused to spell out their cuts during the election and now they are in opposition they are still not admitting what they would have done.”
One of those chattering class apologist-for-the-coalition urban myths.
They spelled out the cuts in the depth of the March budget as picked-out by the IFS: I reiterate – they planned severe consolidation to bring down the size of the budget by £73bn in 2014/15 and fill 70 per cent of the structural deficit by 2016/17. This implied very serious cuts in real spending of £52bn and increases in taxation of £21bn.
Remember the “bigger cuts than Thatcher ” rather too honest Darling quote that lost labour quite a few votes given that the Conservatives had not set out any budget plans and the Lib Dems had pompously claimed theirs was the ‘only fully costed budget’ based as it was on not raising VAT.
To repeat: Mr. Osborne has pledged consolidation of £113bn – an additional £40 billion over what Labour PLANNED and (set out in their march budget), which includes an *extra* £8bn of tax increases and £32bn of spending cuts. All supported happily by Clegg and Co !!
Ideology not fiscal caution.
Another of those chattering class apologist-for-the-coalition urban myths: That we have been on a mass spending spree for 13 years. To reiterate: In 2007 on the eve of the recession the structural deficit was about 2.2 per cent of GDP, but rose because national output fell by 6.2 per cent from peak to trough. Rather than following Mr. Osborne’s advice in Opposition and rapidly reduce spending in the midst of a downturn and allow more banks to fail, the Labour government (alongside most others) chose to simultaneously maintain a stimulus program and recapitalise the banks.
You’ll be hearing more of these points from the Labour leadership over the coming years (or however long the Lib Dem mainstream can handle being part of Thatcher mark two).
I feel that instead of allowing our party and its principles to be dragged ‘right’ back into the 1980’s and Thatcherism, we would have found ourselves with a stronger hand to play outside the coalition rather than in it.
It appears to be a forgotten fact within all our posturing and spin in defence of sickening Neo-Conservative attacks on the poor, the sick, the unemployed and disabled, that the Tory party did not win enough seats to command an overall majority in parliament.
The missing votes that the Tory’s would have required to legislate could only have realistically come from us anyway. So the point becomes not one of how we have tempered a draconian Tory government but how much more we could have dictated events if our hands weren’t tied to this very same government.
It’s a sad fact that we almost certainly could have gained more concessions out of a minority Conservative government then we ever could from a CON/LIB coalition. Our hands are tied now and don’t they know it.
I have read frequently on this site how we are holding the reigns back on the Conservatives. How things would be much worse without us and why people should be grateful that the liberals are in this coalition.
It’s a nice spin but it is simply not true. The Conservatives did not gain the support of enough of the electorate for that to be true and the people I speak to just aren’t buying it.
As it stands we are losing support fast. The devil is actively hunting the vulnerable in our society and he is putting a Liberal Democrat label on his work. The consequences of this label will be felt for many elections to come.
The pre- election promises have turned into lies and we find ourselves defending policies that no Liberal Democrat should be seen to be touching with a very long barge pole.
Has the power gone to our heads? Or were our leaders just plain naïve, or heaven forbid ‘Power hungry’
Megalomania at the top echelons of the party could well spell the end of ‘our’ party as we know it
As I read many of the comments on this site I am reminded of Orwell..
War is Peace
Regressive is Progressive
Black is White
Please, with regard mainly to the many articles trying to defend this coalition and its policies… I am a Liberal Democrat, I’m not stupid !
@Mark Pack “Whether driven by circumstance or long-term plan, the reaction of David Cameron to the general election result has been an attempt to realign British politics around the centre-right, using the need to strike – and then keep an agreement – with the Liberal Democrats as a way to drag his party away from its more right-wing elements”
Hhhmm- this is the Spectator in a recent long piece on Osborne:
“In his dealings with Tory MPs, Osborne has consistently argued that the real prize that the coalition offers is cover on the cuts.
And he is using this cover to create an electorate that is more likely to deliver a Tory majority in future. During the coalition negotiations, he told Tories who were jittery about governing with the Liberal Democrats that only from inside government could the Tories tilt the country in their direction. The argument was that the coalition was a necessary stepping stone on the way to a Tory majority.
To him, that has always been the prize. There used to be a fair amount of grumbling about Osborne among Tory backbenchers. But now many are coming to see him as the man who’ll ensure that the Tories get the better deal out of the coalition.”
Yet still the refusniks………
“It’s a sad fact that we almost certainly could have gained more concessions out of a minority Conservative government then we ever could from a CON/LIB coalition. ”
Absolutely: but your leader (and ‘leading figures’ around him) are Tories and wanted to help the Tories rather than hold them to account (as Vince is still clearly deluding himself about).
I wonder how long- and how much more anti social onslaughts by the nasty party- it is going to take for that to sink in.
@rob maybe we could run a sweep stake.
I really do despair at people in the LD party actually believing that
1) the party has not turned into a rabid thatcherite nasty right wing party
2) that people just have to put up with this coz vince says so
3) that no one has the right to feel betrayed, cheated and generally taken for a ride here.
Lib dem = thatcher
I know it makes you sick but denial wont help
@Barry George: Well and bravely said! I hope you will be able to gain support in your party for your viewpoint. I am a Labour party member so really it has nothing to do with me, but still the sight of those two nodding dogs on either side of the Tory Chancellor made me feel queasy. I’m glad there are still independent-minded people like you in your party, although if you are the Barry George I think you are, you’ll be used to the Tory/LibDem shenanigans in Calderdale!
@ Tony
As a Liberal I wish I could refute you but sadly I can’t. I have been ‘sick’ at our choices and I am getting more disturbed by the day. What is our defence ? A vote on AV ? Hardly worth the price of our political soul in my opinion.
@ Ruth
I speak to many within my party who share my view. Alas few who are brave enough to say it in a public forum. I am pleased that I have got that off my chest. It’s akin to confession at church!
However, I am not the Barry George you think of…
@ Barry 🙁 I wish it was not so
Rob: if you think it’s an urban myth that Labour didn’t spell out their plans for spending cuts, can you tell me what the department spending totals were going to be under Labour? (The point being of course that Labour delayed publication of them until after the general election – so yes, they told us they would cut, but no – they didn’t tell us what they would cut.)
@mark and that makes the actions of this gov non rabid thatcherite does it?
@Mark Pack- “Rob: if you think it’s an urban myth that Labour didn’t spell out their plans for spending cuts, can you tell me what the department spending totals were going to be under Labour? ”
With pleasure even though it means repeating myself 😉
“spell out their plans for spending cuts” was the subject of this debate (and my post) not “set out the department by department spending allocations”- and on that (as stated) the coalitions ideological budget is a fiscal retrenchment of £113bn – an additional £40 billion over what Labour PLANNED and set out in their march budget, which includes an *extra* £8bn of tax increases and £32bn of spending cuts.
Labour did precisely what the Tories did i.e. speak in the round and put off the detailed departmental allocations until the CSR later in the 2010. I would remind you this is *exactly* what the Coalition has now done itself as the government in the recent budget !!!!
However because Labour DID set out overall spending limits in the March budget, these were dug out by both IFS and the CEP at LSE (and others). Hence Darling having to accept/ state that they’d be bigger than the 1981 cuts.
But a key point is that these were allocated figures which was- I hope you remember- more than the Conservatives told us: until their ideological budget.
I believe Labour should have set out at least some greater detail even though the CSR was to take place later in the year. But the political calculation was- wrongly IMO- that given the Conservatives own utter refusal to be explicit about their taxation and spending plans “we’d be fools to do ourselves”. It is interesting to point out here that these plans are far more brutal now that Osborne ‘has the Lib Dems for cover’ as the Spectator article set out. More fool you…
Furthermore I think that Labour never predicted- just as many Lib Dem members did not (and many are in denial still)- just how far and extreme the Coalition plans would be.
But- as said- that number (extra 40 billion retrenchment differential) is going to be repeatedly hammered home in the coming period of benefit attacks, front line service slashes and taxation hikes by the coalition.
@Rob Sheffield
As usual, Labour refuses to state where it would have found its staggeringly large cuts. No surprise there from the red rightists.
“Labour refuses to state where it would have found its staggeringly large cuts.”
Why on earth should Labour announce its departmental allocations until the same time that the Coaliiton does ?! Double standards !! Should I be surprised..?
BTW Lib Dems down FIVE points in ComRes poll out this evening…..
>Please, with regard mainly to the many articles trying to defend this coalition and its policies… I am a Liberal Democrat, I’m not stupid !
What would’ve been the consequences for the country of a Tory government with a small majority, forced to argue everything it wanted to do, and possibly losing Commons votes?
I suspect markets in turmoil, and fairly soon, another expensive and unwanted general election. Either resulting in a bigger Tory majority, enabling them to do as they liked without any compromise. Or a slight shake-up of the May result, no overall majority, and the mess continuing.
And I’m sure other countries and other decades or centuries have had similar situations that worked well – but this is the UK, and it’s finding a coalition hard enough to get it head round.
The maths of a Lab/LD/others coalition didn’t really add up with any faint chance of stability, even if Labour had been interested.
Is any of this ideal? Of course not. But we’re stuck with the parliamentary maths the electorate gave us and an economic mess we didn’t make or choose.
I’m finding it very strange effectively defending anything the Tories have come up with, but I’m just trying to make the best of a bad job, and face up to the realities.
if it all falls apart, Labour can sweep back in at the next election and show us how it’s all done.
But I think it would be better to focus on how to make what we have work, rather than deal with what we should have done but didn’t.
Pre-election promises, btw? You have to be in power, on your own, with a large majority to achieve those.
“But I think it would be better to focus on how to make what we have work, rather than deal with what we should have done but didn’t.”
‘make the best of it’ ?
Surely it is better to argue for and achieve what you actually believe in? Oh sorry I forgot: that is precisely what your leader and those around him are doing !
Even Iain Dale is on your back tonight!
“Liberal Democrat support has tumbled sharply since the budget, a ComRes poll for The Independent discloses tonight. This, on top, of the YouGov poll yesterday showing the LibDems on 16%, 7 points down on their general election performance. Backing for Nick Clegg’s party is at a post-election low – and at its second worst level for six months. The Conservatives have support of 40 per cent, a rise of four points since a ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday on June 20. Labour is up one point at 31 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats are down five points at 18 per cent. The poll also shows that the Tories have increased their support among 25-34 year olds, and the Lib Dems have dropped in this group. Tory support is up to 45% among people in social group AB and 49% among over 65s.
Only 68% of people who voted Lib Dem in May would still vote Lib Dem now – however this support is more likely to go to Labour than the Conservatives.
The challenge for Nick Clegg is clear. How one earth does he differentiate his party from its coalition partners while he is still in coalition with them?”
@ Cassie
Ah, I see… We did it out of a sense of honour and duty to the country. Not for the posh jobs and a sniff of marginal power. That’s a noble answer and I have no doubt you believe it. I also do not doubt that Nick and Vince set out believing it too.
My only problem is that we have somehow managed to save the populous from the chaos of a minority Tory government by allowing the Conservatives (who failed to gain a public mandate for their manifesto) to act and behave like a majority Tory government.
It’s kind of like shooting ourselves in the foot.
We didn’t want sweeping cuts, attacks on the sick and disabled, a rise in VAT or the victimisation of the already suffering unemployed. But somehow, what was impossible for the Tory’s to do alone has been made possible by us.
The electorate didn’t vote for this. For if they did then the Conservatives would have dumped us like a bad date and gone ahead with a public mandate to do….. Exactly what we have enabled them to do…
It would be ironic if it wasn’t so true
Rob: what the IFS (and others) did was to extrapolate from existing spending totals. What they couldn’t say is what the actual individual totals would be; would Labour have taken an extra £10bn from transport to give schools more money? Would the Home Office have had bigger cuts so that the DWP had smaller cuts? And so on. Hence my comment that Labour didn’t tell us where they would cut – and we don’t know where Labour would have applied the axe.
How do you know that many of cuts for next financial year Labour are objecting to aren’t cuts they would have made themselves anyway? You can’t – because Labour hasn’t said where they would have applied the axe but instead are responding to all the cuts as if none of them are ones Labour would have made. Well, if there really is a nice, easy, non-problematic £40bn+ set of cuts that Labour could have made, it’d be nice if they told us what they are 🙂
@mark i repeat and that makes the actions of this gov non rabid thatcherite does it?
“Well, if there really is a nice, easy, non-problematic £40bn+ set of cuts that Labour could have made, it’d be nice if they told us what they are”
Again- why on earth should Labour be held to a different standard than the government? If the Tories both did not identify cuts before the election and now have postponed the detail until a CSR why should Labour be attacked for doing the same?!
Smacks of desperate double standards !
Even so- believe me when I say that the different priorities (tax and spend) of the Conservative government as against a centre left approach will be highlighted. Including that 40bn of extra slashed spending that this government – in its ideological commitment to a “small state” (and belief the private sector will step into the hole…) – has planned over and above what fiscal propriety demands.
@ cassie
one thing that really puzzles me is this during the worst days of the greece thing we had an effective lame duck waiting for the LD to sell their soul yet our econemy did not implode, so why would it now implode if there were another election?
@ others why wont you answer and that makes the actions of this gov non rabid thatcherite does it?
Rob – this is way back now – no. Taxation is going up and therefore the “size of the state” is going up in a sustainable way. Increased spending without taxes doesn’t do this, because spending is politically easy peasy, and raising taxes is politically difficult.
Whether you want the state to grow or shrink, or for it to grow in some places and shrink in others is a big political question, but it is not one you can debate sensibly when you seem to think that what is happening is the opposite of what is actually happening.
Borrowing has been described as deferred taxation, but of course it could just as easily be deferred spending cuts. The government doing the borrowing doesn’t get to make that call – that’s what deferred means. So borrowing is deferred buck-passing on the question of the size of the state. The buck having now stopped, the state is increasing by 20% of the deficit.
–
Now why should any of this cause you to make breathless presumptions regarding my view of the Laffer Curve? (FWIW I don’t think any of us really know where the peak is. But there is always room for experiment.) Desperate to change the subject for some reason?
Actually your answer smacks of Labour’s cynical, dishonest nihilism.
@ paul
maybe if i put it like this
suppose what is held by you and others to be the case, or even the extreme view that everything that is wrong in the world is down to Labour, the budget deficit, child poverty, the banking crises, England lossing to Germany the lot it is all labours fault; does that mean that the government we have got today is not a thatcherite type of Government?
There’s a lot of starry eyed idealism among the posts. The questions we need to answer is where is the electoral percentage? As we speak the Cameron star is rising while ours is down 7 points in a month. The Tories have at least twice the number of core voters than us. They are clearly staying with the Tories joined by an increasing number of floaters who once supported us. Labour meanwhile is static waiting for arrival of a new leader. Of course I feel uncomforable when I see DA on TV more or less defending Tebbitt’s ‘on your bike’ and the Tories views on immigration. So far it’s more Con Lib than Lib Con. Some might say what else do you expect if they have 300 and we have only 57. It can never be a marriage of equals so what is it? Never trust a Tory!
Of course if this Labour hysteria we’re hearing were indicative of the public mood, this swing would be LD to Labour not LD to Con. More likely would be that the swing voters believe this austerity is necessary and think we are weakening it. Or maybe it is just a pointed objection: “you’re too much like the Tories” rather than actual voting intention.
I am getting so frustrated with these arguments about spending cuts – what Labour would or wouldn’t have done, what the Tories/LibDems are doing, what the Tories would have done without the LibDems, etc.
The difference between the parties, as I have said before, is that Labour intended to bring the deficit down by half in the course of a parliament, the Tories/LibDems intend to bring it down completely in the course of a parliament. That means one is half as much as the other. (In fact, Labour’s cuts would be less than half, as a lot of the deficit reduction was to be from growth in the economy, which probably now won’t happen – but I don’t want to confuse anybody by difficult maths here.)
Why do people find this hard to grasp? Or are people just disingenuously pretending not to understand because they’re in denial that their party would be party to this?
And by the way, what is the rush to bring to the deficit down? At the risk of sounding like Mrs Thatcher, compare it to a domestic situation: it’s like cutting back on your food bill so you can pay your mortgage off early – why do it? The reason is, as Rob said earlier, ideological rather than practical.
ruth has a point or three
I wish I could do graphs and piost them up theprojections for what are about to happen are really frightening, this is a massive U turn, forget about being an economist here and just think of any situation a car massivly overstearing and spining out a boat changing direction and taking on water in a storm a lemming going over a cliff, these are the kind of change that this gov is implementing, it is a coallition gov so both parties are responsable.
@Joe Otten
The polls don’t have to reflect Labour hysteria for them to be a major concern for us. If the Tories are attracting floating voters, and if the polls are accurate, they are almost certainly attracting them away from us. If they attract floaters away from us, of course, our vote share will go down while theirs goes up. If this remains the trend, LDs will probably poll about 16% in a GE. Even if the coalition is a success, there is no guarantee, and many reasons to think the opposite, that Lib Dems will get any credit for this. So , I don’t see how your “always look on the bright side” approach to the polls offers any meaningful comfort to supporters of the party.
I’m not a Lib Dem, just a naive voter. I sought out this blog because I wanted to get a feel for how grass roots libdems are reacting to the coalition’s “Thatcherism with fig leaves” approach. I voted lib dem (not for the first time) partly because of their record on civil liberties and opposition to the Iraq war, partly because anything Rupert Murdoch despises can’t be all bad, and partly because I was fooled by Nick Clegg’s mood music about the libdems replacing labour as the progressive force in British politics. I didn’t believe this would actually happen but the aspiration seemed worthy and quelled my fears that Clegg would go into a coalition with the tories. When this coalition duly happened, I was prepared to give it a chance, and was impressed by the early concessions won by the libdems. Now the price of these concessions – a hard right attack on the public sector – has become clear, I’m feeling foolish and angry (like many voters I know who moved from labour to lib dem). The coalition is indeed going to lift millions of people out of tax, by throwing them on the dole queue. I believe these cuts are unnecessary and dangerous, for the reasons argued above by Rob Sheffield and Ruth Johnson, and there is no mandate for them. Yes, both labour and libdems argued for cuts, but not on this scale. Despite this, the libdems will lie back and think of AV. Where is the political opposition to these extreme and divisive cuts? Every time labour opposes them, the response is “You made the mess, so why should we listen to you?”. This isn’t an argument. When arguments are made (profligacy isn’t progressive, etc), they are so general that they could be used to support both sides of the argument. Then there’s the argument that if the lib dems had allowed the tories to form a minority government it would have led to a rapid re-run of the election with the tories coming out stronger. I admit, this had some force at the time, but then at the time I believe the libdems might have a significant moderating effect on the tories. By far the most important of the coalition’s policies is its fiscal policy. What moderating influence have the lib dems had on that? Don’t tell me, the tories originally wanted a 50% reduction of the public sector, but Clegg, Alexander et al heroically haggled them down to 25%. In a country that already has low taxes and a shoestring public sector. Could it have been worse had the tories won a landslide? I’m looking forward to the next voting intentions poll. I hope there are millions of occasional libdem voters like me who feel equally disillusioned, at least enough to frighten a substantial number of libdem MPs into rebellion. What’s the point of three-party politics if two of the parties are Tory? (oh yes, I forgot, new labour were Tory too)
Paul, even after all these cuts we will have a larger public sector as a % of GDP than there was under Blair. And taxes are going up. So I disagree that the cuts are as extreme as you suggest. They are only as extreme (in fact a little less extreme) than the ballistic ballooning of borrowing under Brown.
“And by the way, what is the rush to bring to the deficit down? At the risk of sounding like Mrs Thatcher, compare it to a domestic situation: it’s like cutting back on your food bill so you can pay your mortgage off early – why do it? The reason is, as Rob said earlier, ideological rather than practical.”
Except it’s not. It’s like reducing your spending across the board because you are spending £100 quid more every month than your income and the 0% introductory offer on your Credit Card is about to run out.
“Except it’s not. It’s like reducing your spending across the board because you are spending £100 quid more every month than your income and the 0% introductory offer on your Credit Card is about to run out.”
Hhhmmm
The excessive ideological austerity is like refusing to maintain your car to save money because you are in debt. Eventually you’ll have a crash.
Like some others on here Economics textbooks need to be returned to (or perhaps read for the first time).
Rob your argument may work with a £20bn deficit during a recession, but not with a £150bn deficit or during a recovery. If you actually read any of these economics textbooks you keep referring to, you would see that the actual numbers are quite important, not something to be swept aside with vague analogies.
I suppose you think Gordon Brown’s Golden Rule (remember that) of balancing the books (after capital investment) over the economic cycle was also economic illiteracy? Actually it was good prudence after a Tory administration that seemed reckless at the time, but only trivially so by today’s standards. News for you: the government isn’t cutting or taxing nearly enough to return to the golden rule this cycle. So great is the scale of Labour’s borrowing legacy.
BTW appears I am right about the upcoming recession
UK economic recovery may have peaked as services sector loses steam
from the torygrapph
never mind
🙁