Liberal democrats

There were no explosions during Nick Clegg’s Q&A with Lib Dem members. Some unease with the dynamics of the coalition was expressed: a questioner who asked why the Liberal Democrats were getting the blame for the cuts and the Tories the credit for policies Lib Dems had brought to the coalition got huge applause, but there was nothing approaching a revolt.   Clegg expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with both the Labour party and the media, he even name-checked Polly Toynbee at one point. He accused Labour of being in “a near state of apoplexy and hysteria” and indulging in “a betrayal myth”. He claimed that when it came to

The pro AV rally at Lib Dem conference demonstrated the problem with the AV campaign: they don’t think it is the best system. Pam Giddy, chair of Yes! To Fairer Votes, described it as “a small but important upgrade to our electoral system”; hardly the most inspiring campaign slogan. The Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson declared that “in an ideal world … there’d be a majority for STV”. Nick Clegg received a standing ovation and his speech went down well. He joked that one benefit of being in coalition with the Tories was “that he could no longer be accused of being the poshest man in the room” and that

After stumbling in his crusade for a graduate contribution, Vince Cable seemed to go a bit quiet. But this morning he’s roared back into the newspapers with another attack on coalition policy. The target of his anger is, once again, the immigration cap – but he’s being far less equivocal about it this time around. The way in which the cap is being implemented this year, he tells the FT, is “very damaging to the UK economy.” To force the point home, he says he has a  “file full” of companies who are suffering because of it. And, for good measure, the word “damaging” gets deployed once or twice more.

Enter Nick Clegg with another self-assured article for a national newspaper. A few weeks ago, it was his defence of the coalition’s Budget for the FT that caught the eye. Today, it’s his case for welfare reform in the Times (£). These may be arguments, about dependency and disincentives, that you’ve heard before – but here they’re packaged in a particularly clear and persuasive way. Just what’s needed as the welfare wars, between Labour and the coalition, spill back into newsprint.   Writing about the article, the Times frames it as “Nick Clegg [putting] himself on a collision course with his party” – and you can see why they might

The announcement, yesterday, of Nick Boles’ proposal for a Lib-Con electoral pact conveniently coincided with the opening of an election court hearing into a particularly unpleasant battle between former Labour minister Phil Woolas and his Lib Dem opponent, Councillor Elwyn Watkins. The most serious allegations against Mr Woolas, who won the seat with a 103 vote majority at the last general election, are that he deliberately lied in accusing Mr Watkins of being “in league with extremist Muslims … and prepared to condone death threats against Mr Woolas,” and that in election pamphlets he falsely accused Mr Watkins of receiving funding from abroad. There will, no doubt, be some in

Nick Boles proposed electoral pact (£) between the coalition partners would have a clear benefit for the Conservatives, it would make a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats after the next election impossible. That is quite a prize for the Conservatives. It would mean that David Cameron would continue as PM as long as the two parties between them held a majority of seats in the Commons. It is less clear what the Liberal Democrats would gain from it. Yes, it would help more of their MPs survive, but it would tie their hands ahead of another hung parliament and massively reduce their ability to claim that they are a distinct political

The 8.10 Today programme slot this morning went to Nick Clegg. The programme wanted to discuss with the deputy PM the BBC’s finding that those areas most dependent on the state would be hit hardest by the coming cuts, for some reason this statement of the obvious is regarded as news. But John Humphrys, in his haste to interrupt the deputy PM, made some statements deserving of further scrutiny.   First, Humphrys suggested that the cuts will take place before Christmas. They won’t. Unlike the cuts announced in the immediate aftermath of the election, these are not in-year cuts.   Next, Humphrys claimed that the economy is at ‘stall-speed.’ But