Writing in today’s Financial Times, David Laws sets out his key priorities for the Coalition, discussing what needs to happen in the economy to ensure growth is achieved alongside deficit reduction. He writes about how crucial it is for the Government to get it right on the economy.
The coalition still has the potential to be one of the great reforming governments of the postwar era. The changes we are making in education, welfare and pensions are radical and right. The country will judge us over our full term and not on the basis of a turbulent few weeks of “here today, gone tomorrow” headlines. But after five years, we must show we have made the right decisions on the economy and got Britain back on track. That must be the coalition’s overriding obsession in the year ahead.
He is adamant, though, that the Government should continue with plans for things like equal marriage, saying that the people who are saying that Government should stick to its priorities are saying so because they don’t agree with certain policy initiatives. The Government, he says, should continue to deliver on its mandate for political and liberal reform.
You can read the article in full here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
7 Comments
And I think that paragraph – and particularly the sentence on benefits, pensions and education – neatly sums up why I still have reservations about David Laws rejoining the Cabinet at some point. I still think that, for me, he’s too accepting of the Conservative line and while he might well have a better political antenna than many in the Cabinet I’m still of the view that we need more moderate voices there.
The shocking truth is that the private sector has failed to deliver the growth we need. We need to stop cutting because as we now know this kills growth. I wonder how much extra growth David Laws thinks is achievable by what he is suggesting? It doesn’t really look like a game changer to me.
David Laws says, “The changes we are making in education, welfare and pensions are radical and right”
By “right” he must mean “right wing” – not “right” as in “correct”
I am certainly not sure that the education reforms are right – and the welfare reforms are, in some respects, evil
Certainly they are not the policies of a left of centre liberal party that many of us thought we were joining
Rock on, David Laws.
……………………………….The country will judge us over our full term and not on the basis of a turbulent few weeks of “here today, gone tomorrow” headlines…………..
Er, two years, David. The catastrophe that was May 3rd was a response to two years of the coalition, not ‘a few weeks’.
Sadly, I believe that the “here today, gone tomorrow” headlines will be written in 2015…
Geoffrey :”The shocking truth is that the private sector has failed to deliver the growth we need. “. Do you really believe that Economic growth will come from expanding the public sector ? Where would this stop ? Can we carry on growing the state until it occupies 100% of the economy ?
Stephen
Growth will not come from cutting jobs in the public sector either. As a business owner I know the easiest was to seem to be decisive and to save money is to cut jobs. It is the lazy thinkers option. The Treasury is a lazy thinker and is probably the biggest threat to the UK’s well-being. It can only be countered by a sound economic growth policy.Just where the hell is it?