Lib Dem conference this year brings with it the serialisation of Jasper Gerard’s biography of Nick Clegg. The focus will be on the claims that deputy Prime Minister has promised his wife he’ll only serve one term and that senior Lib Dems are interested in a soft electoral pact with the Tories. But, to my mind, the most interesting point is that the Lib Dems are keen on a new coalition agreement to cover the second half of the parliament.
Coalition insiders have always admitted that the legislation mentioned in the agreement should have been mostly passed by 2012. But the Tories have been keen to spend the second half of the parliament concentrating on delivering on what’s already on the statue book rather than dealing with a whole new set of bills. A mid-term review conducted by Number 10 concluded that the only area in which new legislation would be needed is housing. So, if the Lib Dems do insist on a full, second agreement that could bring out a whole host of coalition tensions on various issues.
In other pre-conference news, Nick Clegg has done some more sabre-rattling on the 50p rate in an interview with The Independent—the headline is ‘Clegg vows: I won’t let Osborne abolish the 50p tax rate’. But the actual substance of Clegg’s words don’t mark a shift from the party’s previous position that raising the income tax threshold should come first and that 50p, if it goes, should be replaced by some other form of tax on the wealthy
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