Monday 11 January 2010

Hand me the Pitchfork! Round Up the Angry Mob! Not.

I probably fit into the target group that the BBC think they are talking about when they say:

"The move away from some of the [Lib Dem]'s key commitments is expected to anger some Lib Dem activists."

They probably think I'll be marching pitchfork in hand down to the spring conference in Birmingham to set the Lib Dems back on the path of the things I've been fighting for, campaigning on, and speaking up for for ages, instead of them being shelved. They think I'm outraged by Nick Clegg's announcement of this morning. But you know what? I won't be.

Unlike Cameron or Brown who have promised things and now that times are tough say they will never happen, Nick is merely putting them on a shelve for the time being. What do you put on the shelve generally? A treasured book to read again later. An ornament or memento of where you've been or what you are. The shelve is there for all to see and the things upon it. However, if you bury something that is it gone from the mind, covered up all trace gone, as if it doesn't exist.

The BBC's chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg is also hinting that she thinks maybe Nick implied that we entered the 2005 election with too many spending commitments. I don't think he was. In fact if we had won in 2005 we wouldn't have to undo at this stage another 5 years of Labour's unfair tax regime in the first place, to pay for the recession, or for spending commitments.

So see that is the heart of our spending commitments first we have to raise national and local authority income fairly. That is still at the heart of what Nick has announced this morning. We have plans to make things fairer. The only problem is that Labour have left us with an awful lot more that needs to be paid for at the moment.

The Tory approach is to get that deficit cut down as fast a possible whilst giving the odd perk to the rich, and no advantage to those who can ill afford to.

Then you have the behemoth of Labour in the person of Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the Treasury, who said:

"Like the Tories, the Lib Dems are starting to realise their plans don't add up at all.

"Today, they're in disarray, making U-turn after U-turn and still failing to make their plans add up.

"And while they talk about fairness, they want to go even further than the Tories on scrapping Child Trust Funds that help provide for children's futures."

What he really means is:

"Unlike the Tories and Labour, the Lib Dems have realised their plans need to add up.

"Today, their honest, checking the sat nav but striving on towards their aspirations a little further off, when they will add up.

"While they talk about fairness, they want to go even further than the Tories by scrapping Labour's long term gaining Child Trust Funds to provide not for children's futures bit their presents."

Especially for the last bit as the money they would need from Labour to pay for tuition under the child trust funds wouldn't be needed under a Lib Dem government as those who are in the scheme are all at least 6 years away from acquiring it.

Only his Labour Rose tinted glasses won't let him see that being grown up about being honest about putting things on the shelve for now, until we can afford to take them down again and look at them properly. But then what would you expect from the party whose leader says let me get you out of this mess, without first owning up to any part of his in getting us into it.

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