Only a few weeks ago, a statement from Nick Clegg in firm support of the coalition wouldn’t have been noteworthy at all. It’s just what he, as Deputy Prime Minister, did. But now, after his very public palpitations over Europe, the New Year’s message that Clegg has broadcast today is a little more eyecatching than it would otherwise have been. This is no provcation to rile the Tories, but a more or less sober assessment of what the Lib Dems have achieved in government, along with a few lines about how fixing the economy ‘remains the number one priority for our party and the coalition.’
Most strikingly of all, Clegg doesn’t include Lords reform in his list of government policies coming next year. The Green Investment Bank is in there, as are the Youth Contract and an expansion in apprenticeships, but mention of the Upper House is there none. This is in stark contrast to the speech he gave to Demos last week, in which he emphasised Lords reform above almost everything else, and urged that ‘this is one boat that urgently needs rocking’. Perhaps the DPM now thinks it wiser not to promise too much, particularly when the policy could so easily come unstuck.
Apart from that, the other thing that stands out is Clegg’s promise, for next year, of ‘further steps to make our tax system fairer’. It could be that he means more action to raise the income tax threshhold to £10,000, or perhaps he has something like a ‘mansion tax’ in mind. But, in any case, you can expect the Lib Dems to push for some sort of tax measure in 2012, perhaps as compensation for their concerns about Europe.
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