Peter Hoskin

Clegg stands up for deficit reduction

Cleggologists will mark down the Deputy PM’s speech today as a typical effort. There was basically nothing in it that was new – but Clegg still put it across with more punch, and more persuasively, than most of his colleagues could manage. All of the slogans and pre-announced policies added up to something that sounded, fleetingly, like a plan for growth. Although we’ll still have to wait for Vince Cable’s review to see the outlines of that plan shaded in.

Clegg’s main point was straightforward enough: that the government has to, and will, go beyond deficit reduction to stoke the embers of the British economy. He then ranged across everything from the national infrastructure to – a theme of this week – endowing the British workforce with skills. His most resonant line was that the coalition didn’t just inherit sickly public finances, but “a failed economic model … of economic growth based on debt and on financial services.”

That said, however, Clegg was consistently strongest on the deficit. There was a welcome return for what is one of the coalition’s most effective self-justifications, first made by the Deputy Prime Minister in his conference speech last year:

“But let me also assure you that we are determined on our course of action to tackle the deficit. The outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his now famous parting note that ‘there was no money left’. Of course it was much worse than that. They left us well and truly in the red. This year we’ll be spending over £43bn just on the interest on our debts. That’s £830m per week. Just under £119m a day. For that money, we could build a new primary school every hour.

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