Lib Dem Spring conference is turning out as the leadership would have wished. The support of Shirley Williams for the Health Bill seems to have been enough to reassure delegates that they should back the bill in its amended form; they’ve already voted to debate the leadership friendly motion tomorrow morning not the ‘Drop the Bill’ one.
In a question and answer session with activists just now, Clegg — to huge applause — urged the party to side with Shirley Williams not Andy Burnham. This appeal to Lib Dem tribalism seems to be winning the day on the health issue.
Clegg, as he always does at conference, used the Q&A session to take a lot of shots at Labour. He accused Balls and Miliband of devising a tax system that was a tax dodgers’ charter, claimed that Labour was suffering from ‘collective, all enveloping amnesia’ and reminded delegates that governing with Labour would have been politically difficult too. He said, ‘anyone who thinks going into coalition with Labour would have been breeze, well just think of the reaction in the South West’.
But Clegg’s main appeal to his party just now was to boast about its achievements more. He stressed that most people didn’t know about the policies that the Lib Dems were delivering on raising the income tax threshold, increasing the old age pension and targeting more money at poorer pupils.
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