Nick Clegg has written an article on welfare in The Times (£) [UPDATE and also available for free via his website], which the fine organ is keen to portray as putting him “on a collision course with his party by championing radical benefit cuts and arguing that the state must not compensate the poor for their predicament”.
Having read the article, I don’t believe many Lib Dems will find themselves disagreeing with much of what Nick has to say.
Instead of turning the system from a “safety net” into a “trampoline” as Labour promised, people have been stuck on benefits, year in, year out. One and a half million people have been receiving out-of-work benefits for at least nine out of the last ten years. Almost two million children are growing up in households where no-one works.
…
Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people’s lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the State to compensate the poor for their predicament.
Nick goes on to explain how he sees the Coalition’s approach to welfare reform as being underpinned by three liberal beliefs – that fairness implies social mobility, with people able to make their lives better for themselves; that people should be in charge of their own lives and not dependent on others; and that welfare should not be just a top-down affair. Clegg harks back to the vision of former Liberal leader Jo Grimond who argued that
a centralised, bureaucratic “welfare state”, treating people as passive recipients of benefits, had to be replaced by a “welfare society”, in which people engaged as active citizens in promoting their welfare, and the welfare of others.
“This vision is long overdue”, Nick writes, and this Lib Dem certainly agrees.
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90 Comments
Yeah, but what does this mean in terms of policy?
Worth reposting some of this here as this is the more aposite thread.
Were that authored by Cameron or Osborne no-one would raise an eyebrow and anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. That it was authored by a Leader of the Liberal Democrats is astonishing.
So Nick is now utterly indistinguishable from the Conservative right wing.
And if you think the grasroots or the public will accept that with equanimity you are sorely mistaken. To wrench the Party from the centre left to the rhetoric the rabid right uses, in record time, is remarkable for all the wrong reasons.
“an engine of mobility” and “changing people’s lives for the better” is empty rhetoric and cold comfort during the worst recession in decades.
To be fair to Nick at least he didn’t say of the poorest and most vulnerable in society “let them eat cake”.
But he wasn’t far off and we heard nothing of this damascan conversion to the rhetoric and values of the right in the election campaign. But of course Cameron wasn’t his best friend then.
The polls do not make happy reading today either.
And to arrogantly dismiss the polls with next years important elections a reality is also sheer folly.
It is almost painful to watch the damage being done to the Liberals previously good name for the sake of a few makework cabinet jobs and a miserable little reform. Some are not merely disappointed but furious with the way things are going but are keeping silent for fear of damaging the Party even further. But that silence will not last forever if this parrotting of Conservative talking points continues.
I say this with sadness, but the fact is Clegg might as well just put on a blue rosette and be done with it.
Oh and for those who missed it the front page headline was “Poor must accept cuts in benefit, says Clegg.”
Nothing Thatcherite about that of course. Just good old fashioned Lib Dem values Nick was taught by Osborne.
I am reminded yet again of Clegg’s telling a mere voter to put a sock in it because he’d had his say.
~alec
@mpg – party policy hasn’t changed
@Iain
You well know that the time for the long term unemployed to find work is not ideal right now. You well know that cutting benafits wont magically conjure up jobs simply leave people poorer still., and yet you seem to jump with relish at these suggestions.
Do you simply not like people who are unemployed . please explain what your aganda really is ?
As for Nick unless I find some additional context (I have the times in front of me ) . This could turn out to be one of the most frightening things I have heard a Lib dem leader say .
Perhaps Lib Dems who don’t live in leafy Cheadle or coerce their 86-year old neighbours into appearing on leaflets for the MP when they don’t want to might beg to differ, Iain.
@LDK
I think MPG meant Coalition Policy . i.e. How much are benefits going to be cut by Nick and Dave !
(If you didn’t mean that MPG my apologises)
Can someone please tell me, has the meaning of the word Liberal changed recently and nobody told me? it seems it has if Nick Clegg is anything to go by or has it always meant this and I’ve been supporting the wrong party all my life?
Seriously, can someone please answer because it’s beginning to really bug me
For those of us that don’t want to pay for the Times online, can those that have it confirm if it says anywhere in the article that he’s talking about cutting benefits? Because all the extracts imply is that welfare shouldn’t be compensation but support to give people something to live on while they look for work, and should be aimed at helping people get back into work through incentives to work/less marginal tax/etc. Hasn’t that been our policy for ages?
@Laura
It hasn’t been policy to cut housing benefit after one year however……..
nige,
There’s socially and economically liberal, you might be one but not the other; the party, at present, is both.
Not read the article, Murdoch paywall and all that; will reserve judgement until I read it, and even then would be doubtful if it was reported straightly.
We ought to be exceedingly cautious about allowing talk of ‘social mobility’ being seen an alternative to the removal of poverty through the guarantee of basic income. We need to achieve both.
nige,
You understand that from an options paper that not all options are taken?
Secretly I was hoping Nick would prove me wrong that he is not driving the party right of centre but unfortunately today’s article in the Times has confirmed my worst fears for the LibDems. If the party doesn’t split from the right wing elements, the LibDems are finished forever. There hasn’t been any effort to tackle the tax evaders but Nick has no qualms about making the lives of the poor more miserable. How does he expect the employed to get jobs when there are drastic cuts in the pipeline? How does he expect the pensioners and the carers to help themselves to a better life? We have been constantly told that cabinet ministers cannot speak against government in public but surely they don’t have to endorse them so wholeheartedly in public either. Nick changed his colours for a taste of power or maybe he was a Tory sleeper all along.
Laura: yes, it does talk about cutting benefits – it says, ‘In this tough fiscal climate, cuts to the welfare budget are unavoidable.’
I think this is an utterly appalling article. What is wrong with a safety net when people fall on hard times? And as for the ‘predicament’ line, being poor isn’t a ‘predicament’, but very tough and a struggle to get by. This piece reads as being clueless about how hard it is to live on benefits, and is yet more pandering to the notion that most people on benefits would get off them if they were less generous. Most people on most benefits, who are not too ill to work (and many are) want work but cannot find it. Why has that been forgotten?
Tomorrow I have the absolute pleasure of signing off before starting employment at the end of the month. I have found my experience with the job centre to have been characterised by a great deal of apathy and unhelpfulness from the people who I had assumed before would be there to assist me. The staff at the job centre seem to be in the main there simply to administer benefits with pretty much no attempts being made to check if you are doing as you say you are, and pretty much no attempt being made to give you actual assistance. I’m coming away from being a “customer” of the system convinced that it is need of a thorough overhaul.
Thomas,
That was my experience also; there’s little joy in being out of work in modern Britain should you want an alternative.
“Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.”
From Jonathan Swift a “A Modest Proposal”
When published, the empty vessels did not recognise it as satire.
Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.
Disgraceful. Those words wouldn’t be out of place coming from a Cornerstone Grouper, but from the leader of the Lib Dems? Clegg should hang his head in shame. If he comes out with knee-jerk crap like that in Liverpool next week, he’ll *need* security.
Come back and lead us again, Charles – and soon.
Each day that passes Clegg tightens the ropes that bind the LibDems to the Tories. It will take radical action for the LibDems to realign themselves as a centre-left party. All the hard work and endeavour put in by party members under Steel, Ashdown and Kennedy have been superseded by Clegg’s folly. It amazes me how senior party activist and members supinely sit there and allow this to happen. How long is the ovation you are planning for his speech? You seem to have forgotten the lessons of the 10p tax fiasco. Strange as it was St Vince that was doing the teaching.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tell Nick Clegg that the state pension was more than “30 quid” …
Labour Trolls under the bridge. Yet again. And the same few over & over again. Perhaps they are professional astrofurfers, funded by NuLab?
Nothing surprising here. Whenever Clegg is tackled over welfare cuts he always does the same thing: he says he “believes in work” as if welfare discourages work in the poor and that welfare cuts to the poor will help generate work, or force them into currently non-existent work, or possibly that we won’t need welfare at all in a few years because all of the unemployed and disabled will by then have secured well paid jobs which pay enough in wages to enable them to support themselves without help from the state. Then in order to fabricate a reason for existing Clegg “bigs up” one of the few LibDem policies that will be seing the light of day – usually the so-called “pupil premium” – to pretend that the LibDems actually have had some input into coalition initiatives rather than simply bending over and taking it, passively, like a man.
Never thought much of Clegg; now think nothing of him at all.
The Liberal Democrat Party is over.
And Clegg can cry if he wants to.
“A fair society is not one in which money is simply transferred by the central State from one group to another.”
Go Nick! Sock it to ’em!
Bloody bankers.
@Richard Grayson – there is a fundamental difference between the total amount spent on benefits going down and the amount an individual gets. Apart from the (appalling) cuts in HB benefits for individuals are not being cut.
I’ve had a bit more to say about this at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2010/sep/16/politics-weekly-podcast-clegg-unions-pope
which was recorded this morning.
@SMcG: ‘there is a fundamental difference between the total amount spent on benefits going down and the amount an individual gets. Apart from the (appalling) cuts in HB benefits for individuals are not being cut.’
I don’t think that adds up – with more people out of work, and that is going to happen, then the bill is going to rise unless the amount paid to the individual falls.
This is just the kind of sound minded thinking that will make the lives of those on benefit so much better, creating incentives for work by decreasing benefit for those people who aren’t working, because in this time of recession and increasing unemployment jobs are.. jobs are.. oh wait, I think i might have just spotted a tiny flaw in the plan of “Arbeit macht frei”
I think we can all agree that making the transition easier for those moving from benefits to work is a good aspiration but this should not include “inevitably creates losers as well as winners”, independently wealthy Nick Clegg looks down from his ivory tower and pronounces judgement on the poorest in society. Throws in his voice and thought and sinew with thatcherite positions that even some in the tory party don’t agree with.
I don’t remember this being a part of Liberal Democrat policy or idealogy in any public forum including Liberal conference, if it had been, if this had been said in the last three elections where I voted Lib Dem then I most certainly would not have done so.
What on earth is happening in the Lib Dem party? Since when was the party I voted for taken over by this right wing element, this is *not* what I voted for. Takeover it is, and right wing it is, the Mori poll today that gives Nick Clegg a 20% higher approval rating among tories than among Lib Dem’s speaks volumes for the right leaning image and action of the leadership. How dare this man right a op ed piece that’s hidden behind the Murdoch Firewall, a piece that is totaly contrary to any previous liberal thought on welfare, last I heard we wanted to increase welfare for the very poorest while at the same time make changes that would make it easier to come of welfare and into work.
Explain again please the meaning of co-alition, no other co-altion across Europe works in this way, no other co-altion partners sanguinely cheer every single policy of the coalition without disagreement, this may as well be one party the way it’s being presented.
The Lib Dems are faced with a stark choice, continue this for five years in this vein, all for, as far as I can see, the sake of giving jobs to a clique among the party, or grow a backbone and start actualy disagreeing with the Torys and presenting our own policys, if this continues as it’s doing at the moment then the party is going to be destroyed at the next general election and it’s not really going to be much of a comfort that we had some people who nominaly represented us sit around in big offices for five years.
I was appalled reading the front of the Times. This is right wing rhetoric at its most vehement. I voted LibDem because of it’s promise of ‘fairness’, of its left of centre manifesto and what have we got. A Deputy Prime Minister who lost the election and is reneging on every promise he made. Can Clegg please explain how £65 a week can drive the “engine of mobility”? Lets see if cutting bankers bonuses will cause them to become more mobile and leave the country.
@ ColinW
Labour Trolls under the bridge. Yet again
That’s the way; dismiss all dissent with a pejorative. It’s so easy, you don’t have to face reality, and you don’t have to engage in the debate, you don’t even need an opinion on any of the current policies. All you need to do is think ‘troll’ every time you read a comment and then, surprise surprise, all is well in the party.
Hordes of Liberal voters are not angry they are simply Labour Trolls. Opinion polls don’t matter. Masses of people over the period since the election have come here to express their dissent. The numbers of such people are growing. But don’t worry they are all Labour Trolls so all is well in the party.
The Tories think more of our leader than we do, but don’t worry; just keep thinking Labour trolls and all is well in the party.
Of course we have highly selective member polls and they don’t look too bad , so therefore it must be the Trolls creating a false impression of the public view.
Blind leading the blind, in fact it has got so ridiculous that there was an article here telling us to go on the attack against Labour. Talk about denial !
If anyone thinks the surge in support for Labour, which is now showing them level with the Tories, is down to them doing something right, they are seriously out of touch. The Labour party don’t even have a leader! But don’t worry, just keep thinking ‘Trolls’ and all is well in the party.
I really do hope that members wake up and fast. I am not a Labour Troll I am a Liberal voter and so are many others here. Dismiss such people at your peril.
@ Colin W
‘Labour trolls under the bridge again.’
Hardly. I joined the Liberal Democrats in 1988 and I am still a member. I was the party’s Director of Policy from 1999 to 2004. I stood for Parliament in my home town of Hemel Hempstead in 2005 and 2010. I am currently one of the three Vice-Chairs of the party’s Federal Policy Committee.
I was a LibDem activist and have said since the beginning of this coalition that Nick needed to draw ‘red lines’, which he and his fellow LibDem ministers would refuse to cross. I have my own ‘red lines’, one was increasing University fees, the other was cuts in benefits to the disadvantaged in our society. It seems our LibDem Parliamentarians will soon cross both, so I’m out of it. For me this is hugely distressing, I have worked hard for the Party in all sorts of roles and now I feel betrayed. I will not become a Labour party troll, or a ‘wild Green’, I guess there is nowhere to go.
One of the issues which no one has addressed is why the numbers dependent on welfare grew so much during a time when the economy was booming and many hundreds of thousands of people came here and found work from E Europe.
@annc excellent thinking. Less bankers =less taxes=less money to pay for benefits.
@Amy do you have any evidence Clegg is ‘independently wealthy’?
@Richard Grayson
I don’t like Clegg’s rhetoric. But the left-leaning Lib Dems need to show that they are more than simply Labour minus the authoritarianism and inefficiency. Surely one and a half million people who have lived off benefits for nine years aren’t all “looking really hard for work”? There has to be an alternative to welfare dependency. It was supposed to be a safety net – not a free ride. I don’t think cutting benefits works to get people into work, but you can’t just leave them there and treat them like they have a right NOT to work.
What separates you from Labour on the issue of welfare?
@Smcg
The numbers dependent on welfare were higher when the Tories were last in charge. They will become higher again.
The financial sector still poses a severe threat to this country. It needs to be shrunk. If that means foregoing some tax revenue in the short term then it’s a price worth paying to avoid another meltdown.
His personal wealth stands at nearly 2 million according to the Daily Mail. Not a source I would normally cite but I imagine it’s good enough for you.
I don’t know what Clegg thinks he is playing at here. I know what he’s usually playing at, which is to soften up some all too pliable Lib Dems and persuade them to support right-wing Toryism. This time it’s odder.
He is boasting that Duncan-Smith is about to solve the conundrums that have defeated all his predecessors, how to eliminate the poverty trap and how to get people off benefits and into work. Let’s acknowledge, for starters, that these are not ignoble goals and that people with reasonable motives, Jo Grimond and Tony Blair being examples, have tried to pursue them. Then let’s look at why they failed.
First of all, you have to start with a largely false premise, which is that the way to cut unemployment is to motivate people more strongly to seek work. This is often a false premise, because however motivated people are, they won’t get jobs if there aren’t any jobs going. Never mind. Better motivation won’t hurt, and it could manage to get more people into work under the right circumstances, when the economy is booming. (If, with the BRICS rising and resource shortages looming, that ever happens again, that is.)
So how do we motivate benefit claimants better? it’s very simple. There are two ways. One, the nasty way, you cut benefits,and persuade or force people to seek work. Two, the nice way, you extend benefits and tax credits etc to people in jobs close to the minimum wage, thus reducing the “poverty trap” and making work more attractive. But Option 2 is hideously expensive, because there are so many people already in low paid jobs, to whom you are going to give bigger state handouts, without thereby reducing the unemployment count.
If you are a reasonably decent politician, you will want to strike a reasonable balance between the nice way and the nasty way. You won’t want to cut benefits to starvation levels, so you won’t save that much money through your cuts. You will want to make an impact the nice way, and there is where you get a shock. Even a small rise in the payments you make to those in work ends up costing you more than you saved in your benefit cuts. That’s when the Treasury tell you your plans don’t work, as they did to Frank Field and Tony Blair. They are now saying the same to IDS.
The response from IDS, we read, is that his scheme will cost money in he short run but save it in the long run. We can guess why he is saying that. He is arguing that his incentives to get people into work will eventually have a real effect, cut the numbers of benefit claimants, and thereby save money without hurting people. Well, it’s a nice thought. Unfortunately, the Treasury won’t buy it, for the reasons given earlier. It isn’t going to happen that way. In fact, uemployment is going to get worse, not better, as Osborne knows well. IDS, like Field before him, is sadly riding for a fall.
So why is Clegg sticking an oar in, and boasting a success that has not yet happened, and is very unlikely to happen?
I fear that IDS has been cast in the role of the useful idiot. Because he is demonstrably sincere, he makes the Tories look better. Because his plans are eventually going to get binned, Osborne does not care. While IDS and Clegg create a screen of respectability in their talk about social mobility, Osborne can get on with the real job. Cutting from the poor, and redistributing to the rich.
@David Allen: They’re raising the tax free allowance by £1000 in April, and it’s going to go up further apparently, which will be quite a significant boost to those on lower incomes. Its certainly a start.
@AndrewR: The size of the financial sector is a problem not of its real terms value but of its value in proportion to our whole economy. Cutting it’s real value down is pointless, as it just takes away jobs and revenue and we gain nothing in return. We need to be focussing on increasing the value of other sectors of our economy to match it, both to raise overall revenue and to ensure a shock to one part of the system doesn’t have a crippling effect.
Bianco
Surely one and a half million people who have lived off benefits for nine years aren’t all “looking really hard for work”?
Care to justify your statement with evidence to back it up ?
Care to show me how many of those supposed people are severely disabled and should not be considered part of any statistics of the unemployed ?
Or do you think that the man down the road with no arms and no legs should learn to write with his mouth and stop being a bloody benefit scrounger ?
Very few people would choose a life on welfare.
Some people seem to falling for the Tory anti welfare scrounger propaganda.
@ blanco
‘What separates you from Labour on the issue of welfare?’
The Liberal Democrat manifesto on which myself and over 600 other candidates fought the last election. An important point in there was the restriction of child tax credits for higher earners, addressing the question of ‘middle class’ benefits’.
Clegg’s conversion has been completed. I find his comments completely outrageous. Welfare is meant to be a safety net, to enable people to have some sort of support when they are not in work/not able to work. I accept the need for reform to prevent fraud, benefit cheats and overpayments, but this is going too far. Benefit cheats make up a small amount of the budget deficit – maximum 5bn could be saved, but Osbourne is talking about 15bn cuts in welfare, and Clegg is more than happy to go along with this. It was a Liberal – Lloyd George who put the foundations of the welfare state in place, and it was another Liberal William Beveridge whose welfare plans were implemented by the post-war Labour government. And now it is a Liberal who is destroying the welfare state.
I voted for the Lib Dems because I thought they were a party who cared about the poor, a party that believed in social justice. I’m just glad now that in my Lib Dem-Lab marginal the Labour candidate held on! I hope that local activists speak out at the Conference – it’s time that ordinary Lib Dem members speak out against what Nick Clegg is doing – in less than 3 months, he can revoked all the good work done by previous Lib Dem leaders to make this party a party to be taken seriously. And as long as Nick Clegg is leader of the Lib Dems, I shall never give my vote to this party.
Smcg said: excellent thinking. Less bankers =less taxes=less money to pay for benefits.
Ah – but it is ok to make hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, all paying taxes, redundant and therefore increasing the number of those who will, if only for a short time, be claiming benefit. The bankers etc, are invaluable however and their contribution to the economy so much greater – not.
How about this for a plan – increase taxation at the very top end, plug tax loopholes for non doms and before cutting benefits (that are hardly at subsistence levels) first ensure that there are jobs for those that are unemployed to go to. Job creation first please.
More ” professional astrofurfers, funded by NuLab ” Colin ?
All is well 😉
Guys,
Are we reacting to the Times headline, or to what Clegg actually said?
Or do some of you have some inside knowledge of what Clegg actually meant? If so, I’d be very interested to hear the details.
Iain has provided a link to Clegg’s article. It’s important we read it, rather than react to quotes taken out of context.
Here’s my take on the article:
(1) He criticises the fact that “More than half a million people face an effective tax rate of more than 90 pence in the pound.” Surely, we all agree with that.
(2) He says: “Welfare reform is not easy and bringing a semblance of sanity to the system inevitably creates losers as well as winners”. That’s a hard thing to say, but sadly, if we want to tackle (1), it’s going to be true. Tackling the poverty trap will cost money. Clegg hasn’t said who the losers will be, but Iain Duncan Smith has said it won’t be the poor.
(3) “Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people’s lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the State to compensate the poor for their predicament.” I dislike the last seven words, but I suspect that was really clumsy phrasing, rather than meaning anything of significance. In the context of the rest of the article, I take it to mean that we need to tackle the poverty trap. Some are assuming this means cutting benefits for the unemployed to get them back into work, but this doesn’t square with what IDS has said.
(4) “In this tough fiscal climate, cuts to the welfare budget are unavoidable.” We all know there are going to be further cuts to the welfare budget, the question is, will they be of middle class benefits, or cuts to the poor. Again, we don’t yet know.
This article needs to be read in the context of the battle between IDS and Osborne, where Clegg has be a vital ally of IDS. And in the context of IDS’s own words quoted in the Guardian:
‘Duncan Smith insisted he would not allow cuts that hit the poor, saying: “I have made a commitment that whatever changes I make do not materially affect the worst-off in society. I certainly did not come into this department to see the poor suffer more.”‘
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/15/welfare-reform-universal-credit
Of course, I might be wrong.
Perhaps this signals a repeat of the worst policy in the budget – to cut housing benefit for the long-term unemployed. But, from what IDS has said, I think that was Osborne’s policy, and IDS will refuse point-blank to go further down that road.
@David Allen
Only just read your comment. Just to say, a pretty good critique of what IDS is planning. I think there are arguments the other way, but I agree, welfare reform is horrendously difficult.
Perhaps this signals a repeat of the worst policy in the budget – to cut housing benefit for the long-term unemployed. But, from what IDS has said, I think that was Osborne’s policy, and IDS will refuse point-blank to go further down that road
Further down that road is unthinkable. The question for me is how we get the politicians to listen to the public’s sat nav that is informing them that we have already gone too far down that road and we need to put the sickening policy you highlight back in to the dustbin where it belongs.
I agree that we should go no further but more importantly we need to stop polices such as this before they hit the poor and the vulnerable.
Who else is there to stand up for them ?
Trust IDS alone ?
The leaderless Labour Party ?
God forbid the Tories ?
I’m afraid that we are the only real hope the poor have andI fear for them based on our current track record of absolute unquestionable loyalty to this Conservative ideological crusade.
ColinW et al. How dare you call me anyone who disagrees with you a labour troll. How dare you. This is the type of spin and marginalisation that’s against everything the party has ever stood for. We used to be about discussion and consensus, we used to be the sensible thinking middle ground, now we seem to be about fiat from on high in the party and dismissal of all dissenting voices.
I voted Lib Dem in the last three elections, I’ve had a Lib Dem Poster in my window. At the previous election, when I was still well enough, I was out in my wheelchair here in Edinburgh delivering leaflets, because I actually believed in discussed and stated Lib Dem policys.
Now the leadership just seem to be making up stuff on the fly and expecting us to go along with it. This op ed piece in the times is just to much for me. Tell me why exactly I should campaign ever again, why should I campaign for this? We’ve spent years building the party up to a reasonable position, and now it seems as if all been thrown away, no one I talk to thinks that they’re going to vote for us again. I have a horrible feeling that we’re going to lose most of our MP’s and a lot of our councillors at the next election and you and your ilk who’ve dragged the party to the right without the rest of us noticing aren’t going to stay around to help rebuild.
“ColinW et al. How dare you call me anyone who disagrees with you a labour troll. How dare you.”
But really, doesn’t it just illustrate how little contact with flesh-and-blood party members some of these Internet types have – that they think it’s impossible that Lib Dem supporters would be unhappy about what’s happening?
Amy McLeod & Richard Grayson – I was not referring to you as Labour trolls – that was aimed at the usual suspects, . Of course I know who you are RG, I was surprised that you really don’t seem to have read anything Nick said in the article, but just the headline which bore no relation to the article’s content.
And as for ‘me & my ilk who have dragged the party to the right’, don’t think so, I go back to YL days when we really were radical.
there has been no denial of the newspaper headline, it seems Clegg is happy with it – unbelievable, either because he genuinely believes that the poor must be made to pay or because he cares so little for news management that he lets the times depict him in this way – very very bad politics either way
ColinW
I was not referring to you as Labour trolls – that was aimed at the usual suspects
And they are ?
Please inform us exactly who the ” professional astrofurfers, funded by NuLab” are Colin?
I am genuinely intrigued.
You have selected two posters with dissenting voices who do not qualify. Should we presume that rest of the posters in this thread who disagree with the article are all Trolls?
Name and shame those who you know are here financed by the Labour Party. I am sure we would all love to know.
I am also sure that Labour supporters would love to know that their party’s money is being spent encouraging people to write comments on an Independent political blog.
Or (as I suspect) do you have no evidence that anyone here is disguising their political allegiance and that in general, Labour supporters are not shy in identifying themselves as such, which would mean that in all likelihood the vast majority of dissenters on this site are in fact real, genuine, Liberal voters.
Please, name and shame or retract.
George Kendall,
“This article needs to be read in the context of the battle between IDS and Osborne, where Clegg has be a vital ally of IDS.”
Any evidence for that? If anything, Clegg looks more like a deal-broker between the two Tories – he is saying IDS can have his scheme, but only on Osborne’s terms, i.e. that there must be clear savings and that some of the poor must be losers.
I suggest you read this Iain. And hang your head in shame.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/09/16/clegg-the-new-face-of-uncaring-nastiness/
The only way to improve society in the long term is to reduce the current levels of inequalities in income and wealth. Liberal Democracy is about providing equal opportunity for all, maximising personal freedom within a fair society and making us all safer in greener world. Income and wealth inequalities at some level are inevitable, but when they become too great then, for the people at the bottom of the scale, their opportunities in life are destroyed in a variety of ways. For them and their children educational attainment is eroded, health is compromised, they are condemded to poor housing and preyed on by high crime. Modern communications mean that the poor are now well aware how much their “predicaments” contrasts with the flaunted wealth of others. We need to wake up.
Very sad. Hopes raised by the possible trident delay have been smashed by this article. I feel betrayed by Clegg, totally duped. He should go back to last years conference speech and hang his head in shame. He’s a hypocritical opportunistic liar. He’s a Tory.
You can dismiss such criticism and anger as the work of a Labour troll. I’m not. I’m just a disillusioned voter who only weeks ago thought I had found a long term political home with the Lib Dems. I read the posts of many party members here and I still feel that. But ultimately Nick Clegg has destroyed my trust
I said: “This article needs to be read in the context of the battle between IDS and Osborne, where Clegg has be[en] a vital ally of IDS.”
David Allen said: “Any evidence for that?”
I’ve read it in a couple of articles. I don’t have first-hand knowledge, so I can’t be sure. But it seems unlikely to me that those articles would claim it if it weren’t true.
“Ultimately Nick Clegg has destroyed my trust”
“The Liberal Democrat Party is over.”
The hell with that. Nick Clegg is over.
David Allen
The hell with that. Nick Clegg is over
I have been pondering recovery routes for the party at length and I have to admit that if it comes down to the party or Clegg then Clegg will have to go. I have to admit that I would take the latter right now. The man has sold our soul to the highest bidder and I am surprised that it has taken till now for some people to realise that it is Clegg and his unwavering compliance that is causing the problem.
A new leader , with the balls (or the female equivalent) to engage in this coalition as an independent party as they do in Europe.
A new leader who has the guts to say ‘no’ to outrageous right wing ideology. A new leader that is a real Liberal Democrat and can be seen as one. A new leader that is more popular with its members than its supposed opposition. A new Leader that doesn’t come across as a true blue right wing Conservative.
Oh well, I think it will be many a month before such an idea takes hold on these pages. But the solution to the dire predicament we are now in can be negated by a fresh, confident face to challenge the right wing ideology that Clegg is not only allowing to happen but is actively pursuing.
Iain, analysis is not constructing a triumphal arch from “trampolines”.
Wittgenstein observed, “that something clearly worth saying, is worth saying clearly”
@IainBB wrote “We ought to be exceedingly cautious about allowing talk of ‘social mobility’ being seen an alternative to the removal of poverty through the guarantee of basic income. We need to achieve both.”
You get to the heart of the matter.
I have never before posted on a forum of any kind, but have often read people’s musings here. Cards on the table, I voted Labour in 1997, but have voted Liberal Democrat in every election (barring the London Mayoralty) since then. I am certainly not a troll and am not being funded by Labour (more’s the pity, haha).
I am thoroughly ashamed with MYSELF that I was follish enough to give my vote to a party who now appears to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Conservative right wing policy that will ultimately, as it has every time before, destroy the fabric of our ociety and leave hundreds of thousands of people poorer and scared for their future. The idea expressed above that Clegg needs to “pal up” with IDS in order to see his reforms to fruition is frankly the most laughable thing I have ever heard. Since when, may I ask, did IDS becaome a paragon of liberalism, this is IDS we are talking about guys!! The tories are playing Nick Clegg like a fiddle, are we all just to sit on our hands and provide the musical accompliment.
If you take a moment to just think of the policies that the Lib Dem’s have now signed up tom it is almost mind boggling. Free schools (privitisation with government funds). A break up of the NHS into thousands of independantly run small GP businesses (a tory policy for decades, that they couldn’t even bring themselves to mention in their manifesto, let alone us). A dismantling of the welfare state, A rise in the most regressive tax of all, VAT, to name but a few, and for what……. A referendum on a voting system only slightly less perverse than the current one (if it ever sees the light of day, let alone is won), a rise in the tax allowance (that will be clawed back by VAT amongst other things) and the so called “Pupil Premium”. A good and fair trade off???? I think not!
I am frankly disgusted listening to members of the Liberal Democratic party in Government parroting the same right wing rhetoric that I for one have spent a lifetime rejecting. I have always considered Nick Clegg with some scepticism and as a previous poster commented, this article could have had Osborne’s name attached without anyone batting an eyelid, but how can the likes of Vince Cable et al be comfortable supporting these policies. I feel lied to, I feel cheated and most of all I feel totally powerless.
Finally, on a political level, there is no possible “good” outcome for this party. If, and it’s an extremely big, if not impossible if, the economy is on the right track and all is well at the time of the next election, the Conservatives will claim the credit for taking the tough measures necessary, if on the other hand as I expect these plans go the way of the past tory governments, then the Lib Dem’s will be crucified at the ballot box by once loyal supporters who view us as collaborators with an ultra right wing agenda. The fact that these cuts in October will be announced with Danny Alexander’s prints all over them almost makes me want to vomit. I, as I said, am ashamed!!
1400 added to jobseekers allowance in July.
Clegg is offering people a cage.
@annc – it is absurd to say ‘job creation first’ there were jobs during the boom and they were filled with immigrants . why was this do you think?
Lost of public servants do valuable work but they dont generate any wealth. the city of london does.
@ Mark Pack (if he is reading)
Not necesserily a representative sample above but certainly an angry one.
Please test this policy statement out with the various Lib dem groups you mix with. (Or even at conference). I would be intruigued to know if it is only ‘one or two’ people who find it disapointing and demoralising.
Value your feedback .
Regards
JF
“Savage cuts” just before conference Autumn 2009; this just before conference Autumn 2010.
In my very humble opinion, both mistaken in terms of giving an open goal to our opponents.
I agree that there could be some positioning of IDS and Osborne behind some of this, however might the explanation for Cleggs right wing rhetoric be as simple as Osborne putting the squeeze on Nick and Nick dutifully obeying ?
It is hardly a secret that after Osborne pulled an extra eyewatering £4 Billion of welfare cuts out of his top hat, on top of the £11 Billion already announced, some Liberal Democrat MPs were rightly upset that the BBC were considered more important to inform first than the coalition partners or Parliament. So when Bob Russell took Osborne’s arrogance and right wing welfare rhetoric to task in the Commons, Osborne was left seething and furious.
We can pretty much guess what happened next as Osborne and Cameron carpeted Clegg and told him to muzzle his MPs and get out there and sell the welfare cuts using any means or rhetoric necessarry. And so it came to pass that Nick has done exactly that and is trying to sell the Liberal Democrats on reheated right wing rhetoric about the poor having to shut up, take the cuts on welfare and like it.
Nick might even believe some of this right wing agenda he now represents, or at least he might have managed to convince himself to believe it after he signed away his independence for a seat in the Cabinet. Osborne may even have reminded/threatened Clegg that the Conservative right wing could still scupper the AV Bill with an alternative date as a crude cudgel with which to get him to do his bidding if he doesn’t play nice and do as he is told.
The incredible irony of this situation is we’ve seen it all before but in a slightly different guise.
You can take it as read that the public and most of the grassroots thought the main benefit of having Clegg and the Liberals in power would be a moderating influence on the more rabid Tory Policies. Particularly when it came to cuts and protecting the poor and the vulnerable in society. Clegg would, we all assumed, be there to stop the more Thatcherite policies and be a more rational centre left influence curbing the worst excesses of Osborne and the right.
Just like those in the Labour Party who clung in vain to the hope that Blair would be a moderating influence on George W. Bush and stop his mad right wing foreign policy designs when Blair began his love affair with Bush. We all know what happened next and Blairs influence proved inconsequential and cosmetic at best while he parroted NeoCon rhetoric to an astonished but cowed Labour Party.
And so it now appears to be with Clegg.
Far from being a moderating influence he seems helpless to do anything other than back Osborne and the right wing of the Conservative Party. No matter what the cost. And like Blair it even looks like he is enjoying his strange new blue role as he trots out the rights rhetoric on demand and tries to make the Party see it his way. Which everyone but himself and his loyal inner circle are never going to believe is anything other than the Conservative way with a few of Nicks favourite buzzwords thrown into the mix.
If Nick cannot curb or influence the Conservative rights agenda but ends up parrotting it verbatim then what exactly is the point ? The Conference will not convince anyone that the Liberals are still Liberals if before the ovations have even faded Nick prepares to spin the most damaging cuts in decades from a Conservative hymn sheet. Then push his new right wing agenda down the throat of anyone who dares question it with the darkly ironic cry that “there is no alterantive!”
@ColinW ‘Of course I know who you are RG, I was surprised that you really don’t seem to have read anything Nick said in the article, but just the headline which bore no relation to the article’s content.’
Really? The article says ‘cuts to the welfare budget are unavoidable’, apparently due to the ‘tough fiscal climate’. The only ways to reduce a welfare budget are: a) reache a situation where fewer peopel need to caim – but job losses will rise and are already rising due to coalition cuts, so that won’t happen; b) pay welfare to fewer people by changing eligibility (so some who are currently receiving lose out); c) pay less to the same number of people.
The headline is clearly in line with the conclusion.
Previous post should end ‘article’ rather than ‘conclusion’.
This is incredible, just four months after an election which gave us hopes of unprecedented influence on policy the party is appears to be tearing itself apart, I’ve read posts from discussing the survival of the party and how it would ‘recover’ to the removal of Nick Clegg as leader, we should be hailing him as one of the best leader ever but instead (it seems) he’s brought nothing but division, lied not only to the party but to electorate and sold liberal principles down the river for a chance of power. god help us in the future if nothing changes very very soon.
@ James Sampson
I too find it very strange that I may have been indicating that Clegg should ‘pal up’ with IDS . i have looked time and again for the ‘sting in the tail’ about his reforms, and at the moment I just can’t find it. We do however find some strange bed fellows to work with and as a Christian IDS’s mind set may be a little different from that of the rabid Neo Cons.
If we did ‘reform’ welfare (NOT CUT) in such a way as to ensure it was worthwhile taking a part time job and still being significantly better off. It would be the biggest achievement for years. If IDS means what he says and Nick and Co don’t back him up it would be an utter disgrace . i can belive that the main ‘social liberal’ in the goverment seems to be IDS (doesn’t say much for our lot) but if on this issue he is lets give him a chance.
There no one can accuse me of being tribal and unwilling to cooperate now 🙂
Richard Grayson: “The only ways to reduce a welfare budget are: a) reache a situation where fewer peopel need to caim – but job losses will rise and are already rising due to coalition cuts, so that won’t happen; b) pay welfare to fewer people by changing eligibility (so some who are currently receiving lose out); c) pay less to the same number of people.”
Or (4), cut middle class welfare.
Let’s wait six weeks and find out which happens, rather than react to an article that we may be misreading.
@ George Kendall
‘Or (4), cut middle class welfare.’
That is covered by b) – I should have been more explicit. But it is unlikely that savings in only this area will be made, not least because of the comments that have been made by George Osborne on the welfare bill.
And I don’t agree that we should wait and see because the current leadership is now persistently dragging us to the right and one of the things that allows them is party members saying ‘Let’s wait and see’. It has been happening for at least two years. People need to express their concerns now.
@John Fraser “I have looked time and again for the ‘sting in the tail’ about his reforms, and at the moment I just can’t find it.”
To my mind, there are two stings in the tail:
Firstly, any reform will cost billions, and will have to be paid for from cuts elsewhere. If, as IDS indicates, those cuts won’t come from the poor, I’m okay with that. If they do, I’m not.
Secondly, as David Allen has written, full reform is unaffordable. He’ll only be able to deliver a fraction of what he wants. In my opinion, that fraction is still worth supporting, and I’m glad, from the reports I’ve read, that Nick Clegg is a key ally of IDS in this.
I think it’s possible Clegg wrote this article, not to support welfare cuts to the poor, but to signal support for a pro-poor measure. If so, the hostile response in this thread is a little ironic.
“on this issue he is lets give him (IDS) a chance”
Good for you.
@Richard Grayson
“I should have been more explicit”
Fair enough. And perhaps I wasn’t reading your comment closely enough.
“People need to express their concerns now”
I very much agree with you. Indeed, now is a little late. We needed to be discussing this two months ago. And I’ve written articles on this site inviting people to do just that.
I just misunderstood that you were assuming the cuts wouldn’t be to middle class welfare, and I feel we should wait six weeks before making such assumptions.
If Clegg is now a Tory should he not be de-selected for betraying the beliefs of the Liberal Democrat party? I hope the conference has some guts and not just be apologists, cheering him. i shuddered at his words, he showed his true allegiance.
@ George Kendall
That is a ‘generous’ reading of the article in the Times and if you turn out to be correct I appluad you in your insight.
If you are right though Nick should stop speaking in codes. “We should reform the discenentive to work but not cut benefits for the genuinely unemployed or disabled ” . If he has said something like that none of us would be arguing about what he was aiming for.
When a politician spaeks in coded language they are usually saying something the audience dont really want to hear.
@John Fraser
Nice of you to say that, though I’m not alone. On the members forum, a number came to the same conclusion, quite independently. But, of course, we might be wrong…
Regarding Nick not speaking clearly. I wish he would too. I suspect there are a number of reasons why he isn’t. As deputy Prime Minister, he is talking to more audiences than us. Conservative supporters will be listening. The press will be looking for specifics they can quote back at him as implying a split in the government. Maybe he has no option but to use code, though I wish he were gearing his articles more at the left-of-centre voter.
But I wonder if another reason is he is frankly too busy. With the loss of the Short money, the party has lost key staff. He doesn’t have the people or the time to polish these articles in the way he probably should.
This recent study that says he’s doing 90% of the work of the Prime Minister with half the admin support, and that there’s a similar overloading of all Lib Dem ministers, might go a long way to explain why we’re struggling to communicate well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/16/nick-clegg-needs-more-staff
@ George (and the rest of you)
Clegg has had time to explore the implications of the article . If he does not retract or clarify at conference he will have been shown to be a man in charge of a party whose pricipals on social justice he fundimentally dislikes. A leader who has no respect for his party is a very dengerous thing . (I remember one in the recent past I think his name was ony Blair).
Nick Clegg: There is no future for us as a party of the left
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-there-is-no-future-for-us-as-a-party-of-the-left-2082689.html
Utter madness.
Clegg’s lost his marbles completely if he thinks the Liberals can possibly compete as an alternative Conservative Party while ditching what remains of the base. Has he forgotten how to read an opinion poll ? Doesn’t he know that UKIP are alreay there as an alternative for right wing voters ? There is no room on the right and no-one will vote for a bunch of yellow tories. His “strategy” is now copy the Conservatives in thought and deed wile hoping for the best because things can only get better ??? Doesn’t he realise this is only the beginning and the honeymoon period and when the cuts hit it’s going to get far, FAR worse?
He will destroy the entire Party just to keep his comfortable ministerial office.
Expect the defections to start soon as those Liberal MPs not bought off with a job presumably still remember what they got into politics for. And it certainly wasn’t to be weak clone of the Tory Party intent on hammering the poor and vulnerable in society.
Nick Clegg – Splitter!
Clegg said “There is no future for us as a party of the left”
I say let battle commence. Lets start by seeing if anyone with principles at LDV has the guts to put this up on the site for member’s to examine ?
George Kendall, you’re a self claimed left of centre member. Are you willing to accept this ?
No man is bigger than the party and no man has the right to try and split the party in half. I said before that if it comes down to Clegg V the Party then I put my self with the party. The man has got too big for his boots and has to go.
Or will that link remain nearly the last comment on an old thread whilst members hide away in cowardly ignorance from this direct attempt at confrontation.
Time to see if the party has any fight left in it. For if you don’t then the party you love will be hijacked by the new Tories and will never be the same again.
We have all seen this coming but everyone keeps saying that it would take more time for the Liberal position in parliament to be seen. Well it appears there is no liberal position. Just two Tory ones !
I watch with interest how this site responds to this direct attack and wonder if it will be conveniently swept under the carpet like so many of the warning signs before.
George Kendall, you’re a self claimed left of centre member. Are you willing to accept this?
A golden rule when reading the press, including the so-called quality press: ignore the headline, it was written by a sub-editor. Read the article itself.
Nick Clegg said: “The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was”.
I regard myself as left-of-centre in the sense that I feel we should have a bias for the poor. That is my definition of leftwing, others will have other definitions.
I’ve always thought the idea of us outflanking Labour on the left, in the sense of appealing to soft Labour voters, and no longer worrying about soft Tory voters was political suicide.
So I entirely agree with his logic. We are a centre party. We must seek to be equidistant from the Conservative and Labour parties, hence my previous article about why we should wish Labour well.
Frankly, his comment is a statement of the blinding obvious. And it’s a selective quote from an interview, and the sub-editor thought it would make a good headline. It has no more importance than that.
The really significant part of the interview is the following:
“he does not rule out a coalition with Labour next time. His approach will be “exactly the same” as this year – that the party with the most votes and seats in a hung parliament should have the first crack at forming a government.”
I really welcome that statement.
(By the way. A clarification on my remarks on welfare reform. The CSJ article I linked to propose a simplification of the benefits system, which involves winners and losers among the poor. Sadly, that’s inevitable. But if the net effect is that overall, the poor are protected, I could live with that.)
It is simple to grasp George unless the article is a lie.
It says Nick Clegg has declared that there is “no future” for the Liberal Democrats as a left-wing alternative to Labour
The pary has a wide range of supporters , from the right , the left and the centre.
Nick doesn’t want the left of centre support.
Nick doesn’t want you George !
@Barry George: If you read the article, what he seems to be saying is that there is no future in a party that people only vote for to “keep the tories out”. There would be equally no future in us being a party people voted for to keep labour out. We should be our own people, with our own policies, and voters should take us or leave us based on those alone.
In in even more simple terms. Not many people would consider the Labour party left of centre , more right of centre.
So if Nick views the centre right Labour party as the ‘LEFT’ then I dread to think what he thinks of genuine left of centre thinkers.
If anything left of the Labour party is unwanted then believe me George, with the opinions you hold, particularly with regard for your concern for the poor, you may not know it but your opinions have just been ejected from the party by Clegg.
He has just taken the last place where a left of centre believer can feel at home in this country and told these people they are not welcome.
Reading the blog’s, as I type this. His comments are being ripped to shreads by the public.
First we tell the public that voting for us would stop the Tories. But we fail to say that once we have you’re vote we actually quite like the Tories and we have no place for you silly little left of centre voters…
Thomas
I read the article and for example I believe that to disregard left leaning members who may or may have joined up because of the Iraq war is shameless. To welcome them to the party and now to tell them they have no future is utterly distasteful.
There is a place for the left in this party, just as there is a place for the right.
It is the left that there to keep the right in check. And the other way round.
To dismiss members with a sweeping statement telling them that they have no future in the party is arrogant, narcissistic and deeply, deeply saddening.
Perhaps Nick could tell the conference where he intends to get votes or support for a centre left Party if not from the centre left ? Cameron was unpopular with the hard right of his Party long before the Liberals joined the coalition because he already appeals to soft Conservative voters. And with Miliband poised to re-enact the Blair centre right doctrine the idea that the Liberals can pick up votes from the Conservatives or centre right is delusional.
Equally risible is the idea that Clegg lined up two big interviews with national Newspapers before the conference without knowing exactly what the message they would send would be. That was the point of them. To send a message and set a narrative for the conference. The messages being, the poor are going to suffer under the welfare cuts and they and those who sympathise with them can like it or lump it. And now that anyone on the centre left might as well pack their bags and leave the Liberal Party because Clegg has no intention of differentiating himself from Conservative Policies or rhetoric. He hasn’t quibbled with either article yet so parsing them for crumbs of comfort is willful denial or blindness.
But the folly doesn’t end there as only a complete Political novice or incompetent would say that dissatisfied voters aren’t welcome in a Party. What kind of a Politician would willingly tell new supporters and voters that because that support came from another Party they should clear off and we don’t want you here ???
You get those votes and you turn them into members and supporters with the strength of your other Policies and convictions. That’s how it’s done. Or used to be done by the Liberal Democrats. Because, be in no doubt, Labour won’t tell any dissatisfied Liberal voters they aren’t welcome and unless Clegg snaps out of his Conservative daydream they are going to have a field day.
The most pointless and delusion comment Clegg made was him not ruling out a future coalition with Labour. He may be on the road to crazytown with some of his Conservative rhetoric but he would obviously need locked up immediately if he ruled out any future coalition with anyone. It is a statement of the bleeding obvious not helped by the fact that such a future coalition depends on having a distinctly Liberal Party that garners a significant share of the vote which right now sounds like a bad joke given the state of the Polls and Nick’s Conservative rhetoric.
Ignoring this huge lurch to the right and trying to deflect the cold hard reality of the situation with happy little conference speeches and features is marching the Party over the cliff to the sound of Nick beating a Conservative drum while telling all who are still listening to him that there is no alternative and the edge of the cliff is just a temporary trick of the light and illusion.
When the bodies start piling up at the bottom of the cliff and those Liberals still left standing ask “why didn’t anyone warn us ?” there will be precious little sympathy for them or Kamikaze Clegg if this fundamental issue keeps being deliberately ignored. It will not go away with time and things won’t get better just by hoping they will.
shock horror lib dems now a right wing party will all left leaning people please leave. That is what the headline in the independant this morning is saying, quoting clegg as saying this. Does that mean clegg is the same as cameron in terms of political stance? Does this mean on liberal tories should stay?
Surprisingly if you put ‘Nick Clegg no future’ into Google you will find that his comments in the independent is the topic of the day. People everywhere are digesting the true meaning behind his carefully chosen comments the day before conference.
However, not surprising is that here on LDV, the voice for liberal members there is no article, no mention of his comments. It’s as if he never said a word.
See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil said the three wise monkeys…
Your lemming’s analogy seems absolutely spot on Bob. Now why doesn’t that surprise me…
Here’s something else for those clutching at straws to pretend Nick hasn’t said in his newfound Thatcherite frenzy.
I wish people would stop reading newspaper headlines and treating them as gospel… *sigh*
I for one agree with Nick. I know many people who work part-time and avoid working more hours as they will lose more in benefits than they gain in income (after tax). I also know people who live comfortably on welfare because they have the right combination of unemployment, kids and other needs that allow them to rack up a welfare income that almost rivals my own income after 40 hours a week working. It’s a nonsense, and living on welfare shouldn’t be a ‘lifestyle’ that people can choose.
Labourites will naturally cry foul and try and paint us as right-wing, thatcherite or tory for trying to do something about this situation, as they spent 13 years creating a welfare culture, knowing that they can then rely on these dependent people for votes on the “basis” that a tory government would cut benefits without addressing the full picture. The challenge for the coalition is proving that wrong, that we *will* address the welfare culture and poverty lock, but in a way that allows people to improve their situation, not just as a cost-cutting exercise.
I’m looking forward to the IDS welfare reforms, I think people are going to be surprised when they see the full detail.
It was Osborne who claimed unemployment was a “lifestyle choice” while he was announcing an additional 4 Billion in welfare cuts on top of the 11 Billion. Something that hardly boosts the case for the cuts being anything other than a cost cutting exercise as the sniping between IDS and Osborne bears out.
But we could just hope for the best. because that certainly sounds like a winning strategy.
I don’t think any Liberal Democrat should defect to Labour and I hope most won’t.
Why should the centre left be silenced or bullied out of a centre left Party by a right wing Leader and his unquestioning acolytes ?