Clegg sets out his stall for 2012

Russell

Here's my version of setting out what the coalition governments stall should be, including Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron.

1)Give the people of this country their say about the EU and euro by giving the EU an ultimatum in terms of our continued EU membership and financial support, with control of our own immigration, fishing, farming, financial, legal and business regulations, and restore the UK to an agreement only on a ‘Common Market’. Whatever is agreed or not, be put to the people of the UK by means of an in/out referendum.
2)Establish approximately equal size constituencies, and sort out the fraudulent postal voting system.
3)Increase all 20% taxpayers personal allowance to a realistic figure of £15,000 per year and link to earnings.
4)Reduce the number of members of the House of Lords to no more than the same as the House of Commons.
5)Scrap all ‘Pilgrims’ in the public sector including Councils immediately.
6)Scrap the fraudulent Trade Union Modernisation Fund immediately.
7)Scrap all the overseas ‘jollies’ by members of both houses disguised as fact finding visits, these infuriate voters who pay for them.
8)Carry out the cull of Quangos which was promised and has not been done.
9)Provide public London accommodation for all MP’s to enable attendance at the House of Commons.
10)Get the abused welfare system sorted out so that genuine people in need through unemployment, sickness or disability are properly funded and abusers properly punished.

Surely the UK government could achieve all of the abobe before 2015 and start to sort out the mess left behind by the previous rubbish governments.

Faceless Bureaucrat

'Clegg sets out his stall for 2012'

Nobody notices...

andrew kerins

Promising to reform the House of Lords is usually a clear sign that a politician has no policies which will appeal to ordinary voters.

Dennis Churchill

Strange that we refer to as ‘Liberals’ people who believe in thought crimes, removing choice as to who you employ, legal enforcement of political ideology, banning things they disapprove of such as hunting; or that are unhealthy such as tobacco, but not various drugs that also harm your health such as cannabis.
In fact should they be allowed to describe themselves as Liberal under Trade Descriptions? And Democrat? They seem completely against direct democracy such as allowing referenda on Capital Punishment and our EU membership.

Tom Pride

Cameron should suffer the little dears (liberals!) courteously, ignore them and nick the advice which the Blarite blogger Dan Hodges offers to Ed Miliband:

“What Ed Miliband needs to do is make people feel safe. With him. And with his party.

They need to know he won't push the economy back over the cliff by spending money he doesn’t have. That he’ll keep tight control of their borders. That he won’t take their money off them and hand it to a bunch of feckless benefit scroungers. That if there are rioters burning and looting their way down their street he’ll send in the water cannon to flush them back where they came from.

It’s not idealistic. It’s not inspiring. It’s most certainly not the New Politics. But it’s what you have to do when you’re a leader of the Left in a country that’s moving to the Right.”

To which Cameron can usefully add Russell’s point one above on the EU.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100125026/ed-miliband-should-listen-carefully-to-jackie-ashleys-advice-then-do-the-exact-opposite/

disenfranchised

since coming out as a serial sulker, clegg's utterances have a had an effortless asperity about them. he's blown his cover. the gloves are now off. we are now seeing the true clegg. must have driven him absolutely nuts having to be seen to be nice, fellow public school chap or not, to dave.
but notice how dave has risen above it all. one never forgets one is a tory gentleman pm.....

Heartless P.

... sets out his stall ...

Yeah? - well, many many people are trying stalls to drum up a bit of trade before Christmas.

Can't see much interest in this lot of tat though.

Cynic

Where do you get these photos? Look at that salute!

Russell

I am in total agreement with your comments Tom, I would have to include EU countries who take more out of the EU bucket of cash than they put in as 'feckless scroungers' as well.

tom jones

Can't blame Clegg for trying to show he believes in different things to Cameron/our party. He's gone from Cleggmania to seeing support for his party shrink - it's surprising he hasn't been more vocal against Tory policies to be honest. I think the Labour years have made people more centre-right than centre-left, but we still couldn't win a majority so there are people in the centre and people who tend to be more left of centre than right that we need to win over if we're ever going to get 40%+ at an election. Might be a good idea for us to listen to Clegg and agree strongly with the bits we like. Not good to write someone off in politics and not good to stop listening either.

Mr. Bubbles

'Urgent'? Hilarious. Yes, let's urgently reform the least broken of the two Houses.

We're always being told the EU has little salience amongst the public at large - no one cares, apparently. I guess everyone's just clambering for Lords reform though.

Presumably this is Cameron's peace offering for the Lib Dems, to keep them from having another strop over the EU veto.

david morris

Did he mention his EU pension ?

thought not

William Blakes Ghost

'Localism' and 'Democracy' form those most unworthy Libdems who worship at the altar of centralist dictatorship in Brussels. That says all you need to know about the Libdems.

They are lying hypocritical confidence tricksters and as we have seen from their electoral performances (only about one in 60 Feltham voters chose them) very bad ones at that....

They should be laughed out of Westminster

strapworld

Clegg sets out his stall for 2012! Who, pray, is listening?

Occasional Ostrich

Stalls are BAD! First you lose lift, them you experience fluttering, then a wing drops and you enter an irrecoverable spin, all the time losing altitude, until finally you crash and burn.

Any of that sound familiar?

daniel maris

No one takes Clegg and his exhalations seriously any more. He had his chance and he blew it.

Andrew Fletcher

Poor old Nick - nobody's listening to him and thise that are are laughing at him

Clegg's problem is that the liberal message is for the good times - growth ,prosperity, and optimism
That was then this is now
The mood now is different - we are focused on sound management and battening down the hatches - he has nothing to say about that

disenfranchised

@ cynic.....

he's doing what they all do. point.

they're all pointers today, especially sarky and merky. then again, they're foreigners, and probably weren't told by their mummies that it's rude to point.

as if we haven't got enough troubles without all this pointing.

what with the EU, and pointing, i so often find myself thinking what is the point of it all.

but that's a pointless exercise.....

michael

Social mobility: : Tax free cheap cars for all.

Democracy: Leave the EU.

Civil liberties : Stop cash handouts sponsoring foreign despots to invent new and
evermore ingenious ways to abuse their peoples.

Internationalism: Real border controls.

Political pluralism: Bring back hanging.

Nicholas

When a lefty starts talking about improving 'social mobility', 'civil liberties' and 'democracy' it usually means that more coercive legislation is on the way to undermine those three.

Just leave us the Hell alone Clegg. NO MORE POLITICISED LAW!!!

dorothy wilson

Cynic: It is not just the salute it's the expression on his face. He looks shattered. And defeated.