Clegg ups the ante – how will Cameron respond?
Nick Clegg today announced that he is scrapping some of the Liberal Democrats “big ticket” spending pledges in a move that looks designed to up the ante on David Cameron and Gordon Brown to finally speak out on where they will put the axe.”We have stripped away everything that is not essential because the country cannot afford it” he said.
The following have gone from the Lib Dem manifesto according to the leader :
The committment to providing free childcare to everybody
The committement to scrap tuition fees in one parliament. It will now be rolled out over six years – year group by year group – starting with final year students.
The commitment to a new citizen’s pension. This will no longer be a firm commitment in the Lib Dem manifesto.
The committment to free personal care has also gone.
He reiterated his pledge to a whole list of things -most of which I have listed later.
Its not a perfect speech -I still struggle to see how the mansion tax is fair – but that – as the Lib Dems have argued in the past- local tax is unfair (both based on the value of your property) – and the “rebalanced green economy” talk still comes across as wooly and pie-in-the sky stuff. (And for the life of me I cannot tell whether is was genius of gaff to criticise the Gina Ford books on babycare just hours before such an important speech).
But if his plan was to highlight David Cameron’s deception in NOT telling us where the axe will fall under the Tories – then he has probably achieved that.
Of course, some will argue that David Cameron can easily continue to evade this question – and plough his own furrow, ignoring the Lib Dem as an irrelevant side show. What’s different this time around are the leaders debates. Nick has been given the gift of being put on an equal footing with both Brown and Cameron on three separate programmes – where the partys (or at least their leaders) can and will be compared on a like-for-like basis. And whilst the chance of a hung parliament is still an outside chance at best, Cameron’s overtures to Lib Dem voters suggests he does at least count it as a possibility that Lib Dem voters will matter at the upcoming election.
The activists are expected to complain bitterly about the down-scaling of their beloved tuition fees policy. I would say to them “hold your fire”. Nick might just have caused the Tory party a headache or two they hoped to avoid. Let’s see how they respond.
And here’s the list of stuff that he reiterated today (none of this is new as far as I can tell)….
a 10% levy on banks profits as long as they are underwritten by the taxpayer;
no to the like-for-like replacement of Trident;
an end to tax credits to above average income families;
cancelling the Government’s Baby Bond scheme;
a £400 cap on all public sector pay increases;
closing of loopholes for the richest (whatever that might actually mean);
introduction of a tax on mansions;
no-one to pay income tax on the first £10,000 they earn;
reduction in the number of MPs by 150;
devolving power over the police and NHS to local communities;
changing the voting system to abolish safe seats;
giving constituents the right to sack corrupt MPs;
January 11th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Council tax is not based on the value of your property. I don’t own a house, but I pay council tax.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Remember that is not just the Tory’s who are refusing to say where their cuts are coming from. Labour (with all the staff the treasury have) seem un able to provide actual figures, the IFS are having to do it too. Hopefully this will get difficult questions asked of all parties who refuse to address the real world problems.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Its not a perfect speech -I still struggle to see how the mansion tax is fair – but that – as the Lib Dems have argued in the past- local tax is unfair (both based on the value of your property) – and the “rebalanced green economy” talk still comes across as wooly and pie-in-the sky stuff.
You couldn’t re-work that, could you? The explosion of hyphens meant that it took me not a few passes before I realised what you meant. For instance, I think this punctuation captures what you wanted to say (with a little bit of copy-editing as well):
It’s not a perfect speech: I still struggle to see how the mansion tax is fair when, as the Lib Dems have argued in the past, local tax is unfair (for both are based on the value of your property); and the “rebalanced green economy” talk still comes across as woolly and pie-in-the-sky stuff.
January 11th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
‘closing of loopholes for the richest (whatever that might actually mean);
introduction of a tax on mansions;
changing the voting system to abolish safe seats;’
I dislike these proposals, particularly the last one – which smells like the road to PRdom to me- the rest are okay. Nothing about reducing corporation and small business tax to stimulate growth? A pity.
January 11th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Philip apologies – it was a quick post – poorly written. Will do better next time.
Duncan Ok, how much Council Tax you pay depends on the Valuation Band your property falls into.
Psi – you are right Labour are definately more evasive than the Tories.
January 11th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
The value of your home, rather than your property then? I rent this place, so it’s not my property, but it is my home and I pay council tax based on its valuation band.
January 11th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Now this is the Nick I voted for!
January 12th, 2010 at 9:22 am
[…] good political and economic sense. Even the TPA call it “New Year’s Honesty”. Liberal Vision call it “upping the ante”, and […]
January 25th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
“a 10% levy on banks profits as long as they are underwritten by the taxpayer;” Underwritten by the taxpayer = owned by the government, certainly in the case of the bailed-out banks; therefore any profit by these banks goes to the goverment (as dividends). This would mean the government taking 10% of the money being paid to the government.
“closing of loopholes for the richest (whatever that might actually mean);” Indeed. What does it mean? Who exactly are “the richest”? This depends on which part of the income spectrum you reside. I admit I’m higher up the income spectrum than a lot of people and, having spent the last decade or so being squeezed by Grabber Brown until the pips squeak, woolly statements like this scare the hell out of me.
“introduction of a tax on mansions;” Similarly, what’s a ‘mansion’? I certainly don’t live in one, but I know people who think I do. Is a ‘mansion’ over x bedrooms? or over y square feet? or over z pounds in value? Again, woolly. And scary for people with larger than average homes.
“devolving power over the police and NHS to local communities;” I’m never sure about these ideas – you’ll only end up swopping ministerial-level incompetents for local incompetents. And lose any national balance that the system should have (OK, in an ideal world it should). You can’t have every possible service in every single region – costs would be prohibitive. Without SOME sort of central planning (again, I agree, what we’ve currently got is not ideal) you’d lose the very-high-cost-very-low-utilisation services that no locally-accountable authority could afford to provide.