Clegg stands up for deficit reduction

Cleggologists will mark down the Deputy PM’s speech today as a typical effort. There was basically nothing in it that was new – but Clegg still put it across with more punch, and more persuasively, than most of his colleagues could manage. All of the slogans and pre-announced policies added up to something that sounded, fleetingly, like a plan for growth. Although we’ll still have to wait for Vince Cable’s review to see the outlines of that plan shaded in.

Clegg’s main point was straightforward enough: that the government has to, and will, go beyond deficit reduction to stoke the embers of the British economy. He then ranged across everything from the national infrastructure to – a theme of this week – endowing the British workforce with skills. His most resonant line was that the coalition didn’t just inherit sickly public finances, but “a failed economic model … of economic growth based on debt and on financial services.”