Gold, Jerry, Gold
Some politician shouldn’t try stand-up comedy. Sarah Teather is one of those politicians.
Liberal democrats
Monday
The coming row over Europe
One of the most striking things about Lib Dem conference has been how up for a scrap over Europe the party’s ministers are. Every single Lib Dem Cabinet minister has, over the past few days, ruled out any attempt to repatriate powers from Brussels. Given that the Conservative party wouldn’t forgive David Cameron not attempting to use any new treaty negotiation to try and regain control of various issues (see David’s blog from earlier), this puts the Prime Minister in quite a dilemma. Personally, I expect Cameron will go for the repatriation of powers. The AV referendum showed that when he has to choose between really angering his party or
Clegg, on fine form, tells his party to move on
“We’ve got to stop beating ourselves up,” Clegg just told Lib Dem members in a Q&A session. As is traditional at these events, Clegg spent a lot of time trying to explain to his party why the coalition is doing what it is doing. The tone of the event was, perhaps, best summed up by the Deputy Prime Minster telling one hostile questioner to listen to his answer. Clegg, in head-masterly form, started by reminding the audience that if the coalition was not dealing with the defitict of its own volition, the bond markets would be forcing it to and “you can’t do anything good if you have no control
JFK: a tax-cutting headbanger
Given that Vince Cable was once a lecturer in economics, it’s odd to see him feign ignorance over its basic concepts. Listen to his speech today.”There are politicians on both left and right who don’t [get it]. Some believe government is Father Christmas. They draw up lists of tax cuts and giveaways and assume that Santa will pop down the chimney and leave presents under the tree. This is childish fantasy. Some believe that if taxes on the wealthy are cut, new revenue will miraculously appear.” It’s perhaps worth quoting one such ‘childish’ politician who was articulating this long before Art Laffer doodled on a cocktail napkin. In 1962, John F
Touring the Lib Dem conference
Hat-tip: The Daily Politics
Vince Cable paints the world grey
Even by his own standards Vince Cable’s speech today was noticeably pessimistic. The Business Secretary warned that the post-war cycle of ever-rising living standards has been broken by the crash. There was little in what he said to suggest that he has any optimism about the prospects for growth over the next few years. If Cable’s analysis is correct — and it is shared, at least in part, by several Tory Cabinet ministers — then the politics of the next few years will look very different than we expected. The initial post-election Tory hope of running a ‘It’s morning in Britain again’ campaign in 2015 now seems like a distant
The Lib Dems’ war on wealth
Vince Cable will address the Liberal Democrat conference later on today. Tim Farron’s indulgent speech yesterday is a tough act to follow, but Cable has chosen a subject to titillate delegates: curbing high executive pay, bolstered by the popular mantra of no more reward for failure. He signalled his intention yesterday in an interview with the Sunday Times, with further details in the Guardian. The Business Secretary will try to ensure that workers and shareholders are represented at directorial level. He will also strive to diversify the membership of remuneration committees to include union reps and low grade employees. Finally, he will push for greater pay transparency in top companies,
In Birmingham, dreaming of opposition
The intrigue of the Liberal Democrats’ conference has centred on the party’s split personality. A Sunday Times/YouGov poll disclosed that as many as 50 per cent of Lib Dems believe that it was wrong to go into coalition in the first place, leading one to assume that only the small clique of ‘conservatives’ around Nick Clegg is keeping the Lib Dems in government. There is a still a strong feeling that going into coalition was the right thing to do for party and country. Lib-Dems who think otherwise, I’m told, “should seriously question [their] logic” because there was no alternative. However much that is true, Lib-Dems still miss opposition. One
Sunday
A Drugs Question for David Cameron
Though scarcely the main thrust of James’s most recent post, this is still notable: Lib Dem conference delegates have just provided the press with a nice easy story, they’ve voted to set up a panel to look at the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of all drugs. I know James is tweaking the press corps just as much as he is enjoying the Lib Dems living up to their reputation on these matters. Those wacky dope-fiends in the grow-your-own-pot party! Nevertheless, could it be possible that the sandal-wearing geography teachers (sorry, this stereotyping thing is contagious) are right? I mean, are the drug laws defensible in either moral or
Don’t mention education reform
A new rule seems to have been adopted at Lib Dem conference: don’t mention Academies. The coalition’s greatest single success story – something David Laws and Michael Gove agreed on before the election – is being airbrushed out. A favourable reference to Academies taking on kids from deprived backgrounds was proposed for a conference motion, but has been excised by the delegates. Lib Dem activists are heavily drawn from the ranks of local authority councilors, many of whom hate the way that schools have been given the power to break free from council control. Confronting them was a key part of Nick Clegg’s modernization programme. It seems that this has
Alexander distances himself from the Tory bashing
Lib Dem conference delegates have just provided the press with a nice easy story, they’ve voted to set up a panel to look at the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of all drugs. But away from the main hall, Danny Alexander has just given an interview to Andrew Neil in which he has distanced himself from the almost incessant Tory bashing going on at this conference. When asked whether he agreed with Simon Hughes’ description of the Tories as ruthless extremists, he replied “I wouldn’t engage in debate in that way.” Alexander said that, contrary to the Jasper Gerard book, there will be no new coalition agreement to cover
Farron brings the hall to its feet
For Lib Dem modernisers there are few more depressing sights than how conference reacts to a Tim Farron speech: he serves up social democratic red meat and they absolutely lap it up. Farron, the party president, delivered one anti-Tory jibe after another. He declared that the government would be an ‘absolute nightmare without’ the Liberal Democrats in it, boasted that Nick Clegg was ‘leading the opposition’ as well as being deputy Prime Minister and accused the Tories of believing it was ok for the super-rich not to pay tax. There were also a slew of attacks on ‘the reactionary Tory drivel’ that the Tories have supposedly sprouted since the riots.
The real 50p split
Nick Clegg’s interview on Andrew Marr this morning subtly shifted the Lib Dem position on the 50p tax rate. When Marr asked him what he would do if the George Osborne commissioned HMRC study showed that it raised no money, Clegg replied ‘then I of course think we should look at other ways in which the wealthiest pay the amount that we’d expected through the 50p rate.’ So, in other words, he’ll accept its abolition if something else is put in its place. But, crucially, Clegg wants any replacement to raise not what the 50p rate actually raises but what it was supposed to raise. This presages the next debate
Teather pledges to double the pupil premium
Assorted acolytes from the teaching unions are padding around the Lib Dem conference, fomenting discontent around activists who are opposed to the coalition’s adoption of academies and free schools. Officials from NASUWT and the NUT have pricked the airwaves with tales of concern and frustration. Education minister Sarah Teather addressed the conference earlier this morning and she was unrepentant. She eviscerated Labour’s record on education and, by extension, the system that has been dominated by the teaching unions. She also pledged to double the pupil premium next year to £1.25 billion, which will allow schools to increase their expenditure on tuition, parental support, after school clubs and so forth. The
Clegg on Marr, a few highlights
Nick Clegg was in combative mood on the Andrew Marr show earlier this morning; he railed against the press and the Daily Mail in particular. It wasn’t exactly an illuminating session, but here are some highlights: Clegg on the Mail: “Can I put this mildly? I really wouldn’t believe a word you read in the Daily Mail. This is the paper that called me a Nazi. They and other papers have got a bee in their bonnet about the coalition. They come up with drivel every single day. I’m in this because I believe it’s the right thing to do…I want to see us succeed in the coalition and beyond…Miriam
Laws and Hughes spar as Danny and Vince tease the hall
The two conflicting wings of the Liberal Democrats are perhaps embodied by Simon Hughes and David Laws. Their political and strategic differences have surfaced in this morning’s Observer, where Hughes gives an interview to say that the Liberal Democrats have to rein in the “ruthless” Tories, and David Laws argues in an op-ed that the “Liberal Democrats must not serve as this government’s brake, but its engine.” That tension needn’t be destructive. As Lord Rennard wrote yesterday the Lib Dem’s long-term strategy is to prove that coalitions work and the junior partner can be both a driving and tempering force on the senior partner. Laws, for example, writes that the
Saturday
The Lib Dems celebrate their achievements
Sandals are being rattled in Birmingham this morning. The Liberal Democrat conference opens to a chorus celebrating the party’s achievements in government. Nick Clegg tells the Independent that “Liberal Democrat fingerprints” are all over flagship coalition policies on schools, welfare, pensions, banking reform and the NHS reforms. He says of the latter that the Liberal Democrats have tempered the Conservatives. Clegg will reiterate this point at a rally later this afternoon. Despite news that the Liberals seek an electoral accommodation with the Conservatives, senior party figures are at pains to accentuate their differences with the Tories. Danny Alexander informs the Financial Times that he views the new backbench Tory Eurosceptic
Clegg kicks off the conference
If you can judge a party’s mood by the number of bad jokes it tells, then the Liberal Democrats are in better form than last year. Their rally to open conference was characterised by a string of appalling gags. George Osborne was a particular target with both Don Foster and Sarah Teather trying to raise a laugh at his expense. However, several of Teather’s jokes, which moved into real bad taste territory, fell totally flat. The main speech of the rally, though, was Nick Clegg’s. Clegg, who was welcomed with a standing ovation, made his pitch that the party was governing from the centre, for the whole country. He ran
Clegg’s humdinger of a rally
That was a great wee speech by Nick Clegg. “We have only five ministers in the Cabinet,” he said. “Well, six if you include Ken Clarke.” His mission was quite tough: to go meet the membership of a party that had just lost half of its popular support, was spanked in an AV referendum, seen its troops massacred in English councils and seen its support in Scotland shrink to staff members and blood relatives – all simply because Clegg joined the Tories in government. But he made the case brilliantly. The BBC estimates that the Lib Dems have implemented three quarters of their manifesto he said, more than the Tories.
Hughes implies that the 50p rate could be dropped
The 50p rate is dominating the media backdrop to the Lib Dem conference. Simon Hughes has made the latest intervention, telling Sky News that the wealthy could and should be taxed in other ways if the 50p rate was “not very tax efficient”. He emphasised the importance of fairness by adding that you “don’t start (tax cuts) by taking the tax away from those who have the broadest shoulders.” Hughes’ position mirrors that of Clegg, as detailed in an interview with the Independent. This episode is a further indication that the economic arguments against the 50p rate are beginning to hold sway. Ed Miliband’s insistence that the rate be retained
