Clegg doesn't rule out working with Brown

Nick Clegg was first out of the blocks this morning with the Prime spot interview on the Today programme.

The Lib Dem leader said his parties proposals to halve the deficit went much further than Labour’s or the Conservatives’and reiterated his view that in a hung parliament the party with the biggest mandate had the “moral right to seek to govern first though not ruling out a deal with Gordon Brown .

Reaction though has not been good.The Spectator's David Blackburn believes he blew a golden opportunity

Nick Clegg won’t get many opportunities to sell himself to voters and he has just been demolished on the Today programme. All things to all men, Clegg was all over the place. He couldn't give an exact answer when questioned about the size of the deficit, and the Lib Dems’ shifting position on the depth of cuts was exposed once again, recalling his autumn wobble on ‘savage cuts’. He also refused to rule out a VAT rise. Similarly, he could not expand on his plans for parliamentary reform beyond labels such as ‘radicalism’, ‘renewal’ and ‘the old politics’.

Quote of the day

in the build-up to the election Clegg's pro-European, anti-Westminster, redistributive liberalism gives him an authentic and distinctive voice. At least he knows his voice will be heard when not so long ago it seemed as if he'd be drowned out by the clamour of the two bigger parties. We will have to wait and see whether he will take it, but he has a chance

Steve Richards in the Independent writing that party's moment may finally have come

Lib Dems tackling education

Nick Clegg is doing the rounds this morning as the Lib Dems release new figures highlighting a previously unidentified performance gap between poor children based on which part of the country they live in.

The gap between the GCSE results of poor children in different parts of the country has dramatically widened over recent years. This gap is now bigger than the national performance gap between rich and poor children, and between poor children and the rest.

Speaking on the Today Programme the Lib Dem leader made clear that he would guarantee extra funding “come what may” to reduce class sizes which would be paid for by £1bn in savings from the quangos and £1.5bn from phasing out tax credits for above average income families.

The third way on tax

The Lib Dems have today proposed changes to the income tax system which will significantly move the onus of payment onto the higher earners.

The scheme effectively replaces their old proposal to cut 4p off the tax rate.Instead the lower threshold rate would be increased to £10,000 resulting in everybody up to earning £100,000 effectively having a £700 a year cut in income tax.

This is of course going to be dismissed in terms of how you can have tax cuts during a recession with a rspidly growing public sector deficit.

The Lib Dems argue that it can be funded quite easily by closing all the loop holes and taxing the wealthy.This would mean cutting pension relief and raising capital gains tax

Lib Dem bloggers to the fore

It looks as though the Lib Dems are responding to the Draper effect if this report in PR week is correct.

Up to 100 Lib Dem bloggers are set to convene at the end of this month to thrash out ways in which the party can improve its internet communications.
The assembled bloggers will discuss ways to use the web to mobilise supporters. They will also look in to the possibility of unleashing a ‘star blogger’ to rival Labour’s Derek Draper or the Tory-leaning blogger Iain Dale.

Lib Dems want Clegg out

Spotted by Tom Miller

A good year for political debate

This morning's Independent leader looks forward to the year as being one for clear political battles and division lines between the two parties.

At last,I can hear the political commentators cry.After years of seemingly consensus politics we finally,thanks in no small part to the global financial meltdown,three parties that have clearly defined an distinct strategies.

On the one side,Labour says that

Government spending and tax cuts are needed to help pull us out of the downturn

.

The Tories believe

there should be no extra public spending, nor tax cuts in the immediate term.
What the Government should be doing instead is establishing aNational Loan
Guarantee Scheme, to encourage the provision of credit to the economy.

Whilst the Lib Dems

echoed Mr Brown's justification for a fiscal stimulus in his own New Year
message, but criticised the form of the Government action taken thus far. Mr
Clegg wants tax cuts for the low-paid and substantial public investment in clean
energy infrastructure.

It will surelyh be a good year for political debate

Clegg's change of electoral strategy may let the Tories in

If you want to understand what the Liberal Democrats are up to, look outside London. Over the past fortnight several local papers have published almost identical stories in which the Lib Dems say that they are shifting resources to target Labour seats in their area. Nick Clegg is quoted as saying that if only x voters shift from Labour to the Lib Dems (usually less than 10 per cent), they will win Swansea West, Derby North, Hull North, Norwich South, Liverpool Wavertree, Warrington South, City of Durham, Blaydon, Newcastle North etc.writes Peter Riddell in the Times this morning


This is a massive change in strategy and one that may well effect Labour's chances at the next election

Mr Clegg is pinning his hopes on taking Labour seats in parts of the country where he believes that the Tories do not have a realistic chance of winning, such as Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Oxford. Resources, both cash and people, are being shifted to these seats

So will it work? Oris this simply a way of letting the Conservatives in?

Am I Dreaming Part 2-Dale supports Clegg

Having declared that at 15 he joined the Lib Dems,Iain Dale writes in this morning's Telegraph that

Finally, a party is willing to embrace the merits of smaller government. Astonishingly, a party leader has had the guts to say the unsayable: public spending is too high and should be cut.

Is Dale moving allegiance's?

Well no but

Clegg's announcement that the Liberal Democrats will stand on a radical tax-cutting platform has left the other two parties gasping

and

the Lib Dems are in danger of being in touch with the overwhelming majority of the British people, who are now feeling overtaxed, over-regulated and over-governed. Clegg has tapped into the Zeitgeist and may reap the electoral rewards.

Some good ideas but as with all Lib Dem initiatives-do the figures add up

Nick Clegg's about turn on tax and spend has not gone unnoticed.

The LibDems must be desperate. So depressing is their opinion poll performance at the moment that they are even resorting to talking common sense about tax and public spending. Not only is their leader Nick Clegg proposing tax cuts for the lower paid - a policy which any politician of social conscience should recognise as morally and politically compelling - but he even suggested on the Today programme this morning that the Government should be "tightening its belt".says Janet Daley on Telegraph.co.uk

Clegg earlier today launched "Make it happen" telling his audience that society after all was not broken and that being British we won't just give up on each other(Mmmmm.....sure we have got the right party here).

Stressing that he wanted to make Britain a fairer country,the party has pledged to reduce income tax from 20-16% the shortfall made up with green taxes and closing the loopholes.

Where he has tried to differentiate himself from the other parties is in a commitment to spend more on those in society that need it the most.

It is the scrapping of the 50p top tax rate and the extra 1p on tax that has determined this shift.

The question that must be asked though is too fold.Firstly will the Whitehall savings and closing of the loopholes make up the difference.Secondly will Green taxes just impinge on those that he is trying to help

Lib Dems want road pricing

The Liberal Democrats have unveiled their radical plans for transport this afternoon.

Nick Clegg called the plan a radical alternative for transport policy in the 21st century.

The main impetus is a move towards that sacred and poisoned chalice of road pricing.There would be cuts in fuel and vehicle excise duty which would be paid for by direct road pricing of motorways and major trunk roads.

The review also looks at railways with the party saying that companies should be given longer franchises in order to encourage investment.The plans would also see domesticair travel given a surcharge to encourage a move to the railways which would be totally electrified by 2050 and more high speed links established.

Lib Dem transport spokesman Norman Baker said of the proposals

With Labour's 30 year plan for the railways stopping inexplicably in 2014 and no firm proposals from the Conservatives, we are the only party with concrete proposals to build a transport system fit for the 21st century.
"Motorists and passengers are getting a raw deal under Labour. We are turning into cattle truck Britain, with rail services overcrowded and congestion growing on the roads, as any commuter will tell you.
"Motorway and trunk road pricing will cost the average motorist no more but the costs will be honest and upfront and rural motorists who have to rely on their cars will save money

A case of after the Lord Major's ball?

At the end of a difficult week for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg,he faces a tough test in addressing the party's spring conference in Liverpool today.

Clegg will have to demonstrate that he is in control of his party after the eruptions of the week over the Lisbon treay, a cause not helped by Vince Cable's much plauded speach yesterday.

A case of follow that according to Sam Caotes over at Red Box

It was clever, funny and powerful enough to be a leader's speech. Vince Cable, suddenly an elder statesman of British political scene, was showing off his peculiarly effective speaking technique - reassuringly unpolished and unprofessional - at Liberal Democrat Spring conference.

James Forsyth over at Coffee house says it

showed how fortunate it was for the two main parties that he did not become leader either in 2006 or after Ming Campbell’s departure. He is able to deliver cutting criticism of the two main parties while staking out political positions that appeal to both Labour and Tory voters.

You can read the full text of the speach HERE

Alex Foster at Lib Dem voice says

At the end, conference were swift to get on their feet for a standing ovation as he left, both for a speech that was a splendid restatement of our entire fiscal policy and much of our social views, and a mark of respect for the great job he did at a difficult time as interim leader

.

Where does all this praise leave Clegg?

Reports are that he is going to emphise the differences between his party and the other two,being crotical of the Tories in pandering to public opinion.After all it is with that party that his MP's will face the greatest battle after the next election.He will also seek to show that the Lib Dems are the party of protest whether it be over Europe or being willing to break the law over ID cards.

But there is hope for the new leader,according to Martin Kettle writing in the Guardian

That is why, with the continuing eclipse of New Labour and only a modest resurgence of the Tory party, the most interesting dynamic in British politics remains - in spite of the party's occasional own best efforts - the Lib Dems. Intelligent observers, sympathetic as well as hostile, in the other two parties long ago understood that the shape of British politics in the next few years rests to a considerable degree on whether Clegg can get the Lib Dems back to the 22% that Kennedy secured three years ago.

Out for publicity or a real case?

Controversy in the Commons yesterday as the Liberal Democrats walked out on mass after the speaker ejected their foriegn affairs spokesman Ed Davey after he had critisised the speaker's ruling

William Hague's comments that it was the most Liberal Democrats he had seen in the Commons when there was not a pending by election were quite apt.

What the party was attempting to do was to force the Commons to debate a referendum on the EU as part of the debate on the new constitution.The speaker who had sent his deputy to sit during the debate had already ruled that it was not going to happen.

Over at Liberal England Jonathan Calder is not impressed by his party

That debate could being within the Liberal Democrats. The idea of a referendum on EU membership had hardly occurred to us before Ming Cambell announced that it was party policy. Now it is such a point of principle that our MPs cannot bear to stay in the House if they are denied a chance to vote for it. It is all very confusing.

And Peter Hoskin at Coffee House expresses the same sentiment,

It's difficult to see what the Lib Dems hope to gain from their bizzare behaviour. Of course, they're trying to present themselves as staunch defenders of the British public's rights. But their actions will most-likely deny that same public a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, whilst achieving nothing by way of compensation. It's one thing to enshrine a red herring as party policy, but running round and slapping everyone in the face with it is quite another.

But interestingly Staunch socialist Bob Piper agrees with Nick Clegg's tactics

Firstly, a purely political move. It would force Cameron's Conservatives to put their money where their mouths are. The fact is, like Labour in opposition, the Tory front bench are all mouth and no trousers on this

and

we are not in the same Common Market that people voted to remain in by 2 votes to one in 1975. The EU has massively more power and direct influence over our lives than the old common trading agreement, and these powers have been ceded to Europe without the consent of the British people.

For the Telegraph this morning the whole incident is

The authority of the Commons Speaker Michael Martin

Michael White on the Guardian's political blog thinks that if nothing else it got the Lib Dems on all the news bulletins

But there are low politics and high principle at work on all sides, not least the Lib Dems, who are committed to voting against the Tory and Labour Euro-sceptic amendment to stage an amendment on Lisbon.

Final word though to Iain Dale who insists

In the end they all managed to make total prats of themselves. It comes to something when despite hours of planning, the brewery piss-up was still totally disorganised. Whelk stall, anyone?

A move too far for Clegg

Hidden away in Today's news about errant priests is Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's interview with the FT in which he considers

his Liberal Democrats could support a minority Conservative government after the next election, if David Cameron proposes genuinely “liberal” reforms in areas such as civil liberties, public service reform and the environment.
The Lib Dem leader on Friday sets out conditions under which his party would back the first Queen’s Speech of a minority government if the next election produced a hung parliament.

A dangerous course for the Lib Dems to be following and according to political betting.com

This is getting onto tricky territory and, clearly, Clegg is using his honeymoon period to get controversial ideas out early. It’s much harder to oppose a leader in his first six months than later. Certainly his predecessor, Ming Campbell, ran into serious trouble eleven months ago when at a conference in Harrogate he gave the strong impression that there could be no deals with the Tories.

No more so than the fact that Lib Dem voters are seen as being more anti Tory than anti Labour.If a vote for the party is seen as letting the Tories in,especially in the margibnalconstituencies,will there supporters desert to Labour in 2010?