The Lib Dems have found their issue

Publius

Not even worth commenting on.

Sally Forth

As ever with the Lib Dems they can treat any issue as clearing up someone elses mess. We shouldn't let them forget that if we'd taken their previous advice we'd have faced the last recession in a monetary union, no independent interest rate, no substantial QE and no currency depreciation having previously had an even bigger housing boom than the one we actually had.These guys get off too lightly too often.

Adam

The raising of income tax threshold is an excellent policy and its a shame the Tories couldn't get this into their manifesto despite flirting with the idea a couple of years ago.

toco

The usual uncosted and ill thought out drivel from the sandals brigade.Just wait until the financial analysts start work for the extent of the LibDems deceptions to surface.

Peter

Tax avoidance is perfectly legal.

Nick Clegg is going to abolish ISA's and pre-tax pension contributions. Even the bike to work scheme will go. Well done him.

Zero out of 170,000,000,000 for nobody in the MSM for correcting hm on this.

I hope he enjoys his 4th place in Scotland again.

jsfl

Fiscal responsibility

Well both Conservatives and Labour are claiming large black-holes (£7 and £10 billion respectively) in their income tax plans.

Fiscal responsibility - yeah right....

Dungeekin

It's the Limperal Dumbocrats, they can say whatever they want, secure in the knowledge they'll never have to come good on any of it.

For all the difference it'll make, Guru Vinceadamus and Cleggy could've been reading from a Mr. Men book.

dungeekin.blogspot.com/2010/04/14-hurt-at-lib-dem-manifesto-launch.html

D

Richard of York

What a refreshing idea....closing tax loop-holes for big business...the same Business leaders who do not like paying tax on NI do not like paying tax in stamp-duty.
If Cameron wants to get a big issue to campaign on he should try say he is against vested interests.
Oh forgot he did....just it doesn.t mean the city, the banks and big business oh and the wealthy......just Unions and immigrants.

Paul Danon

It's "pore over them".

Tony Bristow

So have they finalised the Labour / Liberal alliance yet?

Greenslime

Vince Cable's bluffer's guide to economics. He's not photogenic, his presentation could wheen someone off of mogadon and he is frequently wrong on economic issues - oh, and he flipflops. He must be grateful for the fact that the average Brit these days has a retention span measured in nanoseconds!

Dan Brusca

What struck me about the Lib Dem's presentation is that they seem to be the only party that's at least making an attempt to explain exactly how they might tackle the deficit. I'm sure that their figures will be pulled apart in the days ahead, but the very fact that they've tried, for me, puts them miles ahead of the Tories and Labour on economic policy.

Deficit reduction is the biggest issue facing the country over the next 3-5 years and the fact the Tories and Labour are expecting us to vote for them without explaining how they would cut a single penny of that deficit is laughable.

If Cameron and Brown don't come up with real policies in this area by the time the final TV debate rolls around, Clegg will wipe the floor with them.

Chuck Unsworth

Garbage. This all depends on defining 'avoidance', drafting and introducing new legislation to deal with it, then going through the whole process of recovery of these new monies. How long does Clegg think all that will take? Two years? Three? Longer?

There's no danger whatsoever that this could be done speedily - even if it were possible to do it at all. Treasury 'estimates' are laughable nonsense. Then again, can we really wait that long before we start paying down the debt, reducing the deficit etc? The IMF will be sitting in Treasury long before then.

Fees Office Clerk

If the LibDems cancel Trident and the EuroFighter won't this decision unintentionally end up with a major de-skilling of the UK High Tech Manufacturing Industry.

Building wind turbines instead of Trident and the EuroFighter would surely be a poor replacement.

Chris lancashire

I agree with Dan Brusca that it's about time the main parties started telling us how they are going to address the single most important issue facing the country. I don't think Labour has a plan; I think the Tories do and aren't telling us.
I disagree with Dan on one issue - I don't think Clegg will wipe the floor with anyone he comes across as a school prefect who can't really believe he's allowed to play with the big boys.

DavidDP

Hang on, Vince went round last week saying the Tories would cut swathes of public sector jobs. Now he's saying that he can cut the deficit and it will be okay?

Raffles

I cannot believe how easy a ride Cable gets. The guy has got away with murder over the last 18 months. He has flipped more times than that wee little Speaker twerp. Their latest wheeze aimed at bankers to publicly name (and presumably shame) all earners over 200k tells all you need to know about their claim to be serious let alone the slightest bit "Liberal"! Dont even get me started on the contradiction inherent in "liberal" and Clegg's slavish desire for all things European. To think he has the cheek to bang on about the need for electoral reform in the UK whilst toadying up to that beacon of democratic accountability, the EU! Sorry, i wasnt meant to start on that.

Pete Hoskin

Paul Danon: thanks, corrected now.

JohnT

I have every confidence in any government's ability to spend at least an extra £6bn-£8bn in order to drive in an extra £4bn of tax.

Dan Brusca

@Chris lancashire: I wouldn't be so quick to write-off Clegg in the debates. Remember, he's the only leader who (so far) who has had the guts to go head-to-head with Paxman and acquited himself well.

paulg

They have issues, thats for sure, but not in the sense that you mean it.

Richard of York

@Chuck
So you are now on another zig of the zig zag policy agenda.
Debt is now more important than cheap tax give aways?
Maybe next week you will be back to marriage tax or NIC Tax causes job loses.......the figures Oik cocked up as it is now clear his give away will cost more jobs than it saves.

The Engineer

Two points:

1) In a ruling some years ago, Lord Denning stated that: Tax Avoidance - so arranging one's affairs as to minimise one's liablility to tax - was legal and indeed the duty of every citizen.

2} LibDumbs "Mansion Tax", which will pay for most of their proposals is to be set at 2.0% p.a. of the value of all houses worth > £2M.
In London many houses occupied by people on lowish incomes must by now fall into that category. That means an annual levy of £20000. How are such cash por/asset rich people expected to pay that?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Richard

Would you mind putting that into something resembling the English language?

Stevie

I watched all three manifesto launches and the Limp Dumbs just squeaked Nulabour for the monst bare-faced dishonesty. Do the Limps still want us in the Euro? They are still the most rabidly pro-EU afterall.

Woody

I listened to the Q & A session on the radio and you could hear the nerves in his voice (please don't ask me any difficult questions).

Raffles

Richard, kindly explain to me how tax cuts cut jobs, other than unproductive ones so beloved by your great leader. Then tell me how many "British jobs for British workers" he has created in the last 13 years, then tell me who will pay for the unprecedented debt binge we have been on, if not the private sector you so clearly despise. Even those nasty bankers paid rather a lot of tax. You do what you want with your money and let me do likewise. Your ilk know nothing about the word freedom and hang your hats on words like fairness and equality, which you distort for your own agenda.

TGF UKIP

Absolutely hilarious, isn't it. If ever there was an issue which any conservative party worthy of the name should make its own, it's "fiscal responsibility." Instead Cable and Clegg have now shot the fox which should have been, but never was, Dave's and Boy George's.

Brown is disliked and Labour viewed as not being deserving of another term, but the Tories are viewed as being unconvincing and all over the place; so on the basis of neither of the above, lots of votes which should have been for the Conservative Party are going to the LibDems.

I will repeat the LibDems are going to poll much nearer to 30 than 20%.

The largest party in a hung parliament is now the best Dave can hope for, and even that is in considerable doubt.

daniel maris

I agree with TGF. The Lib Dems nearly always do better than expected because they hoover up the ditherers section in the voters. But Nick Clegg has been pretty impressive so far on the stump. He looks like he's enjoying himself, in contrast to Brown and Cameron. I think he's worth another 2-5%.

So yes, somewhere in the high twenties seems quite plausible. 27-20% perhaps.

A hung parliament is a distinct possibility - unless Labour implodes under the strain of the campaign (not impossible, given the tensions within their camp). But the Tories have alienated a lot of people in employment with perceived attacks on conditions of employment and among their core voters by a failure to address the EU, mass immigration, Shariah activism and the PC culture (in other words, all the issues UKIP are focussed on).

A lot will be riding on the TV debates, that's for sure.