George Osborne's lying slogan "We're in this together" can be more truthfully translated as "I'm alright Jack". The Autumn Statement is an admission of failure, which has made necessary a raid on 4G funds to disguise a rise in the deficit and eyewatering levels of UK debt. Britain will shortly lose the cherished AAA rating. It is clear that Austerity Britain is a smoke screen for a stealth Conservative agenda to:
Shrink the state
Weaken trade unions
Roll back Health and Safety
Roll back Employment rights
Roll back Human Rights
Restore Private and Grammar School education
Destroy the NHS
Gerrymander UK Democracy through boundary change and Scottish Independence to ensure tory dominance
Smash the Liberal Democrats and steal their support
Take Britain out of Europe
SHAME ON THEM
Nevertheless - industry will have been helped and consumers cheered by a freeze in fuel duty, cuts in income tax rates for low pay (through rise in allowances) and cuts in corporation tax. 4/10 for trying.
Key steps for growth
Return Banks to Normalcy and free them to lend and not pad balance sheets
Supertax on £2million Mansions
Ban the Use of the word "Austerity" - it stops spending and blocks investment
Ensure £20 billion of sacred cow Conservative Spending by bringing troops home, re-thinking trident, cutting civil service jobs in London and the South East and selling off expensive London White elephants like the Houses of Parliament (cost £1.6billion), rethink HS2, Make Gatwick the UK global hub.
Finally an opportunity has afforded itself to Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats to shift the political tides in a more favourable direction. The Leveson Report has overwhelming public support.
The public demands that Tabloid Newspapers are finally cleaned up and prevented from widescale malpractice for profit. David Cameron has shifted from welcoming the Report before publication to opposing regulation of the press. Nick Clegg has broken ranks and along with Ed Milliband is backing the Leveson Report.
Here is the cause celebre required to break with the Tories and make common cause with Labour. Cross Party talks on Leveson should form the basis of Labour-Liberal Democrat cooperation for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction, Combating UK Child Poverty, Promoting UK EU Membership, Taxation and Youth Unemployment, and a strong Federal United Kingdom.
Already Ed Balls has suggested cooperation with Vince Cable, such conversations could also include constructive dialogue by Lib Dem Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet colleagues with the objective of strengthening the progressive agenda in parliament and within government.
If David Cameron attempts to block or water down Leveson, Clegg and Milliband must sponsor a Lib-Lab Bill in parliament to gain maximum cross party support in favour of a Leveson Bill to provide Legal safeguarding to any independent press abuse watchdog.
This might precipitate the break-up of the coalition but it would be on an issue of principle and an issue where Clegg is in tune with public opinion and Cameron is seen as the puppet of Murdoch and the Daily Mail.
Should this become a vote of confidence in the Cameron government - Clegg should show no fear in making a new "Leveson Coalition" with Labour or fighting an election in 2013 on the slogan - "Pro-Leveson, Pro-Growth".
The new face of British politics is emerging from the Age of Austerity and the face is that of beaming UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
Conservative Vice Chairman Michael Fabricant is urging an electoral pact with UKIP to enable the Conservative Party to win the next election. At the same time the Conservatives are trying to extend the Austerity psychology to turn the clock back to the 1950's. Put the political jigsaw together - the return of O levels, attempts to restrict access to degrees to a small elite, the rise of the rented sector, the pricing of ordinary working class motorists off the road, the rolling back of human rights, employment legislation and health and safety law before 1974. Watch out for the return of corporal punishment, hanging, steam trains, grammar schools, the golden age of atomic power and national service. We've already an old etonian in downing street so rev up the Bentley it's back to the 50's.
What of the future of the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition? - already we've had back pedalling and blatant renaging on the coalition agreement from the Tories. With the prospect with a post 2015 Anti-European and crypto-rascist right wing coalition between the Tories and UKIP looming, now is the time for the Lib Dems to accuse their present partners of political infidelity and forge a pro-growth, pro-europe and pro-human rights coalition with Labour and the Greens to deliver the correct mix of policies need to return to sustainable prosperity. Chancellor Osborne warns the Age of Austerity lasting 8 years (why because he wants this to happen)
It is clear that the conservatives are intent on using recession, debt and deficit to pursue a covert agenda aimed at social, political and economic rengineering of Britain which will end in the break up the Union, and the exit of britain from europe. Can the Lib Dems block such actions? Is it time to change the incumbent in downing street from Cameron to Milliband.
It is clear that with the nicely timed "Fostergate" issue breaking on the Rotherham By-election that UKIP will do very well in the protest vote.
What UKIP fail to realise that millions of UK jobs in the food, farming and manufacturing industry have relied upon east european migrant labour doing the low paid unpleasant jobs - such as abatoir work and agricultural labouring to enable industries being based in the UK. Had this work not been done, then food companies and certain manufacturers would have been forced to relocate to low cost centres like Portugal and Poland in the 1990's. Just like the London buses and NHS migrant labour has been essential to keep key infrastructure working. If more effective effort had been put into apprenticeships and vocational training then we might see more UK workers in these roles.
Tory policies (NHS reform, education reforms, police chiefs) and politicians (Mitchell, Nadine et al) continue to implode nicely and Lib Dem arguments in favour of taking a harder line against press barons, tax dodgers and Bankers are winning through. Our dogs may bark but beware the sneaky tory caravan rolls on towards 2015. The Conservatives are increasingly shedding their Cameron skins and breaking cover as Thatcher's Children. What is clear is that they will from a policy point of view fighting it out with UKIP for the Right Wing vote leaving the Lib Dems and Labour contesting the Centre Ground and Left of Centre Vote. Had the Lib Dems not entered into the coalition with the Tories this ought to be very good news for the party but we are sadly toxically damaged by being willing accomplices .
As the political game stands at the moment - the only certain thing about 2015 is that the Lib Dems have a high risk of electoral meltdown. So the cards are stacked against us. We keep playing the game, in the hope of events coming to our rescue, but it is increasingly clear that the Conservatives strategy of winning 2015 is based upon the annihilation of the Lib Dems (just like 1924) according to George Osborne's cunning plan, amongst many.
What to do ? - one option (described as the nuclear option) is to simply formally leave the coalition on a matter of moral issue (and there are plenty of them) and leave the Labour Party to take over government on a supply and confidence basis. We have a fixed term parliament so there is a legal requirement for the government to function until 2015 and we can threaten to conclude an electoral "pro-growth" pact with Labour (and possibly other parties) to deter a conservative vote of confidence in parliament. This would allow the Lib Dems to distance our party from the Conservatives, allow the Conservatives to morph into UKIP (Mk2) unfettered and give some better prospect of survival. If we allow the party to be smashed in the 2015 polls, it will split into 2 tiny groups - a Liberal Orange Book Party to be absorbed by the Conservatives, and a Social Liberal Party to be swallowed by Labour.
We can clearly go on for another year or two making mischief of Tory policies from within the coalition but as Tory policies fail they will surely blame us, or tear themselves apart. Either way it will be messy and Labour can take the moral high ground.
We could play the straight bat, trudge on it the national interest, take the blows from all sides and do our best - but without a credible economic plan and a triple dip possible/likely this seem like the actions of stoic lemmings (look at the Liberal Party during the First World War) .
Wait and See until Spring? - the procrastinators option of muddling on is tempting, hopefully a good retail Christmas, a drop in fuel and gas prices, further growth in the enterprise economy to offset public sector cuts - some of this will happen but european and international forces will drag growth down in 2013 unless we see some dramatic action from Obama and Europe to kick start things (unlikely).
So after all - we will keep plodding on then in the national interest, keeping the government in power like a loyal wife being cheated on and knowing that a successor is being groomed (UKIP) to take our place as post 2015 coalition partner, and we will fall on our swords in 2015. Still the idea of tipping up the game board does excite.
Today's Liberal Democrat Conference Debate on the Economy has shown that the Party remains solidly behind the Coalition Government, the Party Leadership and Nick Clegg's continuing Leadership. Defeat of the Social Liberal Forum's Amendment 1 was overwhelming and it brought solid fighting attacks on the bankruptcy of Ed Ball's Siren calls for Plan B when already Liberal Democrats were successfully fighting for a Green Growth Strategy and Investment Programme in government along with a more practical implementation of Deficit reduction within the credible framework supported by the IMF and Global Investors. Vince Cable's witty, authoritative and masterful speech announcing a Billion Pound British Bank to help Small Businesses and Exporters was a substantial structural improvement.
The Party has come to terms with successes and failings so far in Government and is already beginning the political fightback for 2015.
Brilliant contributions from Steve Webb, Jo Swinson, Vince Cable, Tim Farron show a talented team of conviction politicians determined to put fairness at the heart of government.
Liberal Democrats can take heart that for once we have been the centre of attention. In the old days when David Steel said his famous lines "Go back to your constituencies ... and prepare for government" the other parties (and public laughed) well we have been in government for 2+ years and what we say and think matters. Admittedly we got some things (a lot wrong) and we been blamed (wrongly) for the things the Conservatives have done and compelled us to agree with , but that's Coalition Government. When Britain faced a political crisis in May 2010, I didn't see Labour or the Conservatives coming together to save the economy - did you? If Lib Dems had said we're not getting our hands dirty, and refused to talk to the other parties then we would have had a weak and indecisive minority Conservative government without mandate to do anything and the economy would have been in the toilet. Instead we have had strong (not always joined up) government but Lib Dem popularity has taken the hit.
We might be in single figures in the polls, have a leader as popular as Michael Foot but the eyes on the world are on us and we have even captured the very short attention span of the big brother 15 seconds of You Tube fame which is popular culture with Nick Clegg's "I'm Sorry Parody". Defying conventional wisdom, this week's Lib Dem Conference in Brighton will strangely renew Nick Clegg's leadership and put and end to the Right wing drift of the Party. At a fringe meeting today Labour's Policy wonk John Cruddas even praised the positive role the Lib Dems have had as a break on right wing Toryism. All the critisism of Clegg has been taken on the chin and on board. The Political fightback can begin, with Lib Dems united and determined to hold the line against an autumn of radical right "Tea Party" style Conservative attacks on Britain.
Tim Farron Party President is witty in saying that George Osborne has abandoned Plan A, since Michael Gove has marked down his grade to Plan B. It is good to see that the Party's call for a tax on the super rich is now policy and remembering that the party has already taken so many low paid people out of income tax already.
Clegg has been branded a liar (on the basis of the Tuition fee cock-up) by politicians on the Left and Right who have a long list of massive deceptions and blunders to their name, (Iraq, End to Boom and Bust, NHS Safe with us) and it is time the party rallies to his cause.
We must be determined to renew the coalition to it's dual task of reducing the budget deficit whilst stimulating economic growth and Ed Davey's speech on Tory attempts to block Lib Dem Green Growth strikes the right note. Not sure about Jo Swinson's joke about Jeremy Thorpe or Norman Baker's plan for road charges though. Nick Clegg has correctly expressed the public concern on tax evasion by the super rich while the poor are paying more and earning less. Welfare reform has started to highlight potential savings from greedy people but Lib Dems must work to protect the genuine needy in this process. Steve Webb's efforts to fix the Pension timebomb are laudable but it is the economic hear and now we need to fix, we need to win today to fix tommorrow.
Nick Clegg is safe and he will be able to build on this as a bruising but catharthic experience to reconnect with the party.
If we fight hard, then mistakes made in 5 days in May, will be put to one side. What matters now is to get growth , keep our civic rights (employment, human and safety) and relations (especially with Europe) good and deliver on the deficit reduction. If the Lib Dem left is given a proper role in this and not rail-roaded then we might even be able to forge effective inter party policy agreements with the enemy (Conservatives) for the good of the Country - stronger defences (bring back Ark Royal, Sea Harriers, HMS Brittania, Concorde) , putting Afghanistan on a sustainable security footing and boosting Britain's exports with the BRIC group. Perhaps if we can get effective tax gathering for the super-rich we can see cuts in taxes on jobs and wealth creation - eg VAT, NI, Corporation Tax, High Street Rates and Fuel Duty.
Nick Clegg is facing his personal political Dunkirk. His popularity is at Rock Bottom with the public and his party. His political mea culpa has been ridiculed and he is facing calls for his resignation.
How he now reacts will determine his future and the recovery of his party's fortunes. On the one hand he could react defensively and with pride and like Tory Whip Andrew Mitchell over "Plebgate" or Tony Blair over Iraq could continue with half an apology, arrogance and hubris. Or he like Winston Churchill after Dunkirk turn a disaster into a Political Victory.
If I were him, I would ensure that the Youtube Viral Hit "Im Sorry" was played at his entrance into the Party Conference.
If I were him, I would take it with good humour and take ownership of the humiliation. If necessary why not travel like Lempik Opeg to the Australian Jungle to eat his "I'm a Celebrity - Jungle Humble Pie". It can only improve his popularity and it is how unpopular celebrities redeem themselves with the public, which is what he needs to do. If not (then perhaps Europe beckons?)
Clegg can still show Leadership and turn blunder and humiliation into success. It's only over when it's over and the public loves an underdog - especially one they kicked, but the trick is to still smile. Not a job I would want but I'm not Vince Cable.
