Clegg’s electorally confused tax strategy

Nick Clegg’s interview with the Sunday Telegraph today is a punchy affair. He derides the Tories as “the flaky party” on the economy and tells Melissa Kite that the Lib Dems are looking to go further than the 4p cut in the basic rate of income tax that they have already promised.

Now, those of us who support easing the tax burden should be happy about this. A  Lib Dem policy of tax cuts means that it can hardly be portrayed as a policy of the extreme right and should encourage the Tories to offer some more before the next election. But it seems an odd strategic decision for the Lib Dems when they have chosen to concentrate their resources on fifty Labour-held seats that are sufficiently left-wing that the Lib Dems not the Tories are the main opposition. (Clegg admits that the Lib Dems main aim when it comes to fighting the Tories is “holding on to what we gained last time.”)