Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Now Nick Clegg turns on Labour ahead of mid-term review

Nick Clegg is in a pugnacious mood at the moment. First there was the very conveniently leaked memo in which Lib Dem strategists urged MPs to criticise their Tory Coalition partners publicly. Now he’s gone on the attack against Labour’s spending plans, or lack thereof. The Deputy Prime Minister writes in The Times:

‘The Labour leadership continue to complain about the coalition’s approach, but without providing any credible alternative. They’re learning the tricks of opposition and finding their rhetorical refrains. But where are the numbers? Where are their sums? The country has undergone the biggest economic crisis in living memory, yet they offer no explanation of how they’d get us out of this mess, nor any admission of responsibility for their part in creating it.’

He challenges Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to be open about which cuts they would keep and which they would lose, adding:

‘To oppose everything is to offer nothing, and the country will not be duped.

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