Lib dems Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg announce ‘savage cuts’, where are the tories?

Strange, I was under the impression that there was a budget next week but dominating the media at the moment is news of cuts, cuts and more cuts, the next more draconian than the one before.

Danny Alexander has announced £2 billion in cuts.

He is cutting an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. Stopping support for a visitor centre at Stonehenge, scrapping the rollout of the Future Jobs Fund. Cancelling a new hospital north of Stockton. The pain goes on and on. The biggest sums come from the suspension of a scheme to replace search and rescue helicopters operated by the Ministry of Defence and the Coastguard. This scheme was to have been funded on a PFI basis.

Mr Alexander seems to take great delight in wielding the axe. “The former Labour government was spending money it didn’t have, cynically playing politics with the hopes of many communities” lectured the former press officer of the Cairngorms National Park…

Danny is not alone in playing the harbinger of doom. His boss, our revered deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was getting in on the act as well, his target was tax credits for families.

It is not unreasonable he said to reduce these handouts to better-off families.

I declare an interest here. It is a long time since I finished raising my own small family, but in those far-off days the concept of state support for parents in work was entirely alien. I have watched in puzzlement as taxpayers money has been handed out to apparently prosperous families who did not appear to need the money. Well, Mr Clegg thinks so too; he has rushed to identify himself with proposals to cut tax credits to families with incomes in excess of £30,000 a year. The details will emerge in George Osborne’s emergency budget next week but Mr Clegg seems to feel the need to prepare the ground for the Chancellor.

Now is it just me or is there something lemming-like in the lib-dem high command which attracts them to bad news announcements like moths to a candle? Please note that in all of this talk of cuts and austerity there are no tories to be seen or heard.

Is it the numbing effects of so many long years in minority opposition politics that is causing this strange predilection for doom-laden statements?

Make no mistake Mr Clegg, Real Politik has not gone away, the tories can hardly believe their luck that the lib dems are doing so much heavy lifting on the bad news front. Cutting tax credits for middle earners and putting large numbers of people out of work will be electorally unpopular to say the least. These are tory cuts but the tories while they may not escape the fallout scot free have very successfully managed to focus the blame on the hapless lib dems with them being so keen to help out and all…

Nick, Danny and all the rest of the innocents are going to have to learn a hard lesson and learn it soon if they are to avoid oblivion at the next election in 2015 or whenever it happens to be.

In politics it doesn’t always do to selflessly leap into the breach. There is a time for saying nothing and letting the real culprits take their share of the opprobrium.

Ah well, they’re young, I guess they’ll learn. Eventually….

Nick Clegg on the Andrew Marr show leads for the coalition on spending cuts

Politics is a queer game, now that the coalition is in train we are going to suffer spending cuts and a time (probably a very long time) of austerity.

We are likely to hear some of the gruesome details tomorrow on the first installment of £6Bn’s worth. Now you would expect the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be leading on this one but this weekend Nick Clegg stuck his head above the parapet. He clearly feels confident about leading for the coalition on spending cuts.

On the Andrew Marr show he gave vent to his feelings about the cuts to come.

He said that the nation must prepare itself for a period of painful retrenchment, that the age of plenty was over.

Now I’m an old-fashioned soul, but when I hear a politician using the ‘painful’ word I see doublespeak for:

Well my job’s safe but some of you poor sods are going to get your P45 in the not too distant future

Mr Clegg went on to castigate the labour government for unaffordable spending commitments and ‘throwing money about’.

Now, I’ve been a stern critic of Gordon Brown’s period as Chancellor and prime minister, but there is the small matter of the banking collapse, the credit crunch and all of that. I never accepted Mr Broon’s worldwide thesis entirely, I thought he could have been a lot, lot more prudent than he was; but this crisis was caused by reckless and unrestrained greed around the planet and most of our current deficit is down to the rescue of the banking system, quantitative easing and such.

Mr Clegg seems to have conveniently forgotten all of that.

He is four-square behind the cuts to come, I’m not accusing him of flip-flopping but he thought the economy was ‘too weak for immediate cuts’ just a few weeks ago. He justifies this by saying that the current eurozone crisis means that immediate action is needed.

Now Mr Clegg’s thoughts on all of this are quite interesting in a sort of a way but I have to confess when it comes to serious matters that potentially mean pain for perhaps the majority of the UK population I would prefer to hear from the organ-grinder rather than the monkey if you see what I mean.

Where is our vaunted prime minister or the Chancellor, the good George Osborne on all of this?

Mr Clegg may feel that he is doing the right thing in proclaiming cuts and pain to come but it seems highly significant that there is not a tory to be seen. Would I be churlish to suggest that Nick Clegg and the lib dems are convenient fall guys put up to take the blame while the tories do the dirty deeds quietly in the background…

Politics is a dirty game and if he wants to survive the years of the coalition yet to come he will have to learn that there is a time for saying nothing and letting his tory masters announce the bad news. After all this is a tory government, the cuts have been formulated by George Osborne and the Treasury. They should be taking the flak.

Special Lib dem conference votes overwhelmingly for coalition. Nick Clegg triumphant

The story this morning was Nick Clegg coming under fire from activists prior to the special lib dem conference at the NEC in Birmingham.

Mr Clegg had managed to get the 75% support from his MPs and the Lib Dem federal executive which he needed to avoid the ‘triple lock’ which would have entailed a postal vote by members and concievably the biggest climb-down in British electoral history.

The conference had a vote but it was effectively powerless to stop the coalition which is now a done deal.

There have been rumblings. Charles Kennedy has been openly sceptical, even ultra-loyal Paddy Ashdown expressed concern. The polls have not been favourable since the election. The ICM poll for the Telegraph indicates a 3% fall to 21% for the party since the election.

The leadership organised the special conference to allow activists to consider the current alliance with the tories. Mr Clegg was a little apprehensive about the outcome as there has been trenchant criticism coming from many different parts of the party.

Danny Alexander, the new Scottish Secretary was more upbeat. He thought that most activists were in favour of the deal.

Well all of that is now history. I can report that the vote has now happened. Mr Clegg won the overwhelming support of those present, in fact he also got a standing ovation.

Now in terms of democracy within the party this is not of tremendous significance but it is a very encouraging sign for Nick Clegg that his actions are winning hearts and minds within the lib dem party at large. Let’s face it, the outcome could have gone the other way and his progress in the new government could have been diluted by an ongoing fight with the grassroots of the party.

I take it as a sign that the lib dems are happy to be in bed with the tories. The prospect of power and the implementation of some of their policies is a compromise they look happy to live with. We could be negative about all of this and I am on record that this alliance could be the death of the lib dems as a political force in the United Kingdom. That is far in the future though and is really up to them to consider.

I am reasonably happy that there is not a rampant tory party in power with a decent majority. In the current dire economic circumstances that could be painful  in the extreme. At least we have some moderating influence at play. I suspect that the lib dems actual influence on events will be much less than the party currently thinks, but half a loaf is better than none.

So, good Luck Mr Nick Clegg and the plucky lib dem party. We all have a big stake in your success in the years to come I hope things work out and your present enthusiasm will survive the slings and arrows which will undoubtedly come…

Frank Field joining the lib dem tory coalition as anti poverty czar

Well, well, well, it’s a fast moving political scene in the United Kingdom these days. We’ve had the formation of the tory liberal alliance in the last few days and now they are firming up the arrangements. Jobs have been decided Nick Clegg is the deputy PM, David Cameron of course is our new Prime Minister.

(Thought I’d write that, still seems an odd thing to be saying).

Developments follow, one after another and today there has been a defection… Well that is to say, there has not been a defection but Frank Field, the respected member for Birkenhead has joined the coalition…

I’ll pause for a moment.

Frank is 66 years old, he has been in the Commons since 1979, he’s been around a long time. I have a lot of respect for this man.

He was sent by Tony Blair to ‘think the unthinkable’ on Welfare Reform. He did.. and came back with his findings but he was just too, too radical and his proposals were not taken up.

Frank Field had a short but fiery spell in government, just a little over a year before resigning and he has acted as a back-bench MP ever since. There has always been something of the maverick about Frank but he is a deep thinker about social welfare issues and has a better understanding of the details of ordinary folks’ lives than any other politician I’ve bumped into.

Now it appears he has taken the Queen’s shilling, he is joining the coalition although he remains a Labour MP he will now act as anti-poverty czar for David Cameron and personally I respect his decision to do this.

Clearly, he will be subject to criticism for this development but I don’t think that will bother Frank Field too much since his relationship with the Labour party at large has been to say the least a mixed bag. I have heard many Labour folk talking about Frank with ill disguised contempt and it surprises me that somebody with his record gets so much flak. That’s a cross the Labour party will have to bear of course.

For me, a leftie from the old school the last days have held little comfort but there have been positives. The lib dems have embarked on a risky venture with the tories, it may lead to their eventual extinction as a party, but for the next 5 years the worst excesses the tories are capable of will be modified by the gentler influence of the Liberals.

In a similar way this appointment will modify the tory policies.

I agree with a lot of what Frank Field has said over the years in terms of welfare reform. We have allowed benefits dependency to grow up as a lifestyle option in this country, generations of families are workless, they have no motivation or aspiration to work. That’s not especially their fault but the systems need changing so that UK plc is not wasting its human resources whiling its time away on the dole.

So, good luck Frank Field. You will need a thick skin in the times to come but I am sure you are more than capable of making a very positive contribution to affairs

You have my vote at least!

Alastair Darling, Chancellor, Nick Clegg says phony war.

Just been listening to the budget statements from the UK parliament in Westminster. The country is facing the biggest financial disaster of all time but you wouldn’t have known it listening to Alastair Darling, there will be ‘economies’, even some ‘savings’, alcohol and tobacco will be increased and there will be an increase in duty on petrol and diesel.

Stamp duty will be abolished on houses valued up to £250,000, just for first time buyers of course (oh and only for two years mind).

Stuff, stuff and more stuff and blah, blah, blah and err, that’s it Talk about fiddling while Rome burns…

Nick Clegg got it about right. Phony war he says.

Here’s a definition from the Free Dictionary:
(1939–40) Early months of World War II, marked by no major hostilities. The term was coined by journalists to derisively describe the six-month period (October 1939–March 1940) during which no land operations were undertaken by the Allies or the Germans after the German conquest of Poland in September 1939.

That’s just about right. The nation is waiting with bated breath to see what the ‘real budget’ is going to be, today’s proceedings were a joke and everybody knows it.

There is going to be a lot of real pain for a lot of real people and we have to suffer the slow moving train wreck that is today’s budget with a long drawn-out election campaign to come.

They used to talk about UK PLC, trouble is Public Limited Companies can go bust, substantial economies like ours are not supposed to end up in bankruptcy proceedings but we are moving ever closer and unfortunately our political masters are not in any great hurry to do anything about it anytime soon.

I tend to feel that we need some real action here, first of all to stop the bleeding and then make a start on the long road to recovery but I suppose we will all have to learn the virtue of patience over the forthcoming months and years…

Vince Cable and Nick Clegg. No winter fuel payment for men over 60!

Vince Cable and Nick Clegg have been quietly scheming away and in the spirit of a new ‘reality’ they have come up with a whiz-bang idea for repaying the National Debt.

Women have been enjoying the luxury of State Pension payments at the young age of 60 years up till now. The Labour party have already legislated so that this age rises to 65 in stages from 2010 to 2020. This will equalise the compulsory retirement age for the payment of state benefits to 65 for men and women.

This arrangement is clearly discriminatory towards men since women receive state pension at a younger age and on average live longer than men. To add insult to injury comparing male and female employees between 60 and 65, once a woman is in receipt of her state pension she stops paying National Insurance Contributions which means that women in this category are a state pension plus eleven percent of income better off than men.

Now this rather unsatisfactory arrangement is slowly going to unwind over the next ten years not to the benefit of men but to the detriment of women.

Coming back to Messrs Cable and Clegg, their rather clever wheeze is already happening, as the pension qualifying age rises so will the threshold for winter fuel payments, by 2020 winter fuel payments will be paid at age 65 for everybody (if they still exist).

As a sop to men in this category we get the crumbs off the gender inequality table in the form of winter fuel payments and a bus pass (here in Scotland at least)

The two guilty men in their first ‘realistic’ cut are going to remove the fuel payment.

Are they going to remove it from women who are in receipt of the state pension at, let’s say 61 or 62. I don’t think so. If this goes ahead it will be men in this age category who will suffer this mean cut.

So, dear Mr Cable and Mr Clegg. Go back to the drawing board. Your mean-spirited cut is actually the most egregious piece of gender discrimination seen in this country in a very long time and I guess your planned-for £400 million of saving in the light of ‘reality’ will turn out to be very much less…

Nick Clegg and the Lib-Dems in Never-Never Land!

The General Election looms ever nearer and my attention was taken today by Nick Clegg the leader of the UK Liberal Democrats.

He was playing a game which I have watched the Liberals play Election after Election.

It’s a sort of let’s pretend.

Let’s pretend that we really, really are a government in waiting.

Mr Clegg says today:

We were pledged to deliver free childcare for all. We will no longer be able to do that.

We were pledged to scrap tuition fees for all students we will not be able to deliver on this particular promise

Money is short. We need to treat people as adults, choices have to be made.

I know the Lib-Dems have to compete with other parties at the General Election but it is a very long time since their predecessors were realistically a party of Government.

Guess we have to go back to David Lloyd George to find a Liberal Prime Minister.

There is something of the  alternative Universe about statements like this, since the Liberals have been in a third party position since the 1920’s. You would think it would be possible to find a form of words which were a better fit for the likely outcome of the election.

Don’t wish to discourage Mr Clegg and company but while looking around for reports of his speech I could only find the Telegraph among the print media which had commented on his speech.

That is other than the official Lib-Dem outlets.

Maybe if Nick could couch his statements at a more realistic level he would generate a little more interest than today’s earnest entreaties have generated because let’s face it we need the Lib-Dems to brighten up UK Politics and give us all a laugh from time to time.

The thought of an unrelenting  two-party politics system would be just too much to bear!