From the file marked ‘are you fucking stupid or what?’…

A few days ago Dizzy Thinks spotted an oddity in the expense claims of Hull North Labour MP Diana Johnson:

At the end of the detailed, albeit censored claims, provided on the Parliamentary website, is an invoice to the tune of £1,654 for “delivery of a leaflet in Hull North Constituency during September and October 2007?.

Looks legit doesn’t it? However there’s is an oddity about it. You see, there appears to be no such company as J W Shipley Distribution, either solvent or dissolved, listed on Companies House. An advanced search for all companies with “Shipley” also throws up nothing. Curious!

There is, however, an “independent” member of Humberside Police Authority called John Shipley who happens to be a local Labour Party activist in Hull, who also stood for the Labour Party in Hull during the 2002 elections.

I tried to contact Mr Shipley yesterday for confirmation that the invoice was from him but as yet have had no response.

So is a Labour MP claiming Parliamentary expenses to pay a Labour member to deliver leaflets? Well, although he may not have responded, I’ve been speaking to Liberal Democrats in Hull who confirm they personally saw Labour activist (and frequent election agent) John Shipley out delivering the leaflets in question.

Rum indeed. Investigations are, as they say, continuing…

Tell you what, let’s save both LDV and Dizzy the time and effort of making even bigger arses of themselves by pointing out a few screamingly obvious facts.

1. The invoice from ‘JW Shipley Distribution’ does not include a company number nor does it appear to use the words ‘Limited’ or ‘Ltd’, hence Dizzy’s inability to find any reference to it at Companies House.

2. As a sole trader, John Shipley – it this is indeed him – entitled to use just about any business name he likes when carrying out trading activities, as long he doesn’t misrepresent the legal status of his business or use any of the restricted words or phrases set out in company law.

3. According to a statement given to the Yorkshire Post, who picked up this non-story yesterday, the invoice relates to the “distribution of a non-party political Parliamentary report to 40,000 households in Hull North in autumn 2007.”

Typical costs for a solus distribution of a leaflet or newsletter run to around $50 per 1,000 leaflets, which puts the amount listed on the invoice- £1654 – well within the usual ballpark which would, for a 40,000 delivery run – come in at around £2000.

In fact, if you look at the price here then it seem apparent that what JW Shipley Distribution have done is knock off the VAT that would have been payable had the leaflets gone out via an established distribution company, saving the taxpayer £350 in the process.

Unless either can provide evidence to show that the leaflets weren’t delivered or that the payment was not declared to HMRC as income then there’s nothing more to be said here.

Even if a Labour activist did get paid for delivering these leaflets, its of absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

In the days when I used to produce community newsletters for distribution to upwards of 17,000 households I used to farm out the delivery side of things to a local Scout troop and pay them the same amount that I would have done had I gone through a commercial business. I got the newsletters delivered – and usually much more reliably than I would have done by ‘going commercial’ – and they got their utilitiy bills nicely covered with a bit on top for additional equipment and extra activities for the kids.

It’s called localism and it works.

Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of Spirit Level films’ excellent new documentary ‘The Fear Factory‘, which I promise I’ll get around to reviewing for Lib Con sometime in the next few days.

In anticipation of that review and in keeping with my recent post on dodgy election leaflets, its been brought to my attention that the Lib Dems have been actively fear-mongering is some of their recent leaflet, the most egregious of which has to be this effort, which is being delivered to households in Haringey.

Why they don’t just go the whole hog and stick out a leaflet featuring Freddie Kruger and Jason Voorhees I don’t know but for what its worth the leaflet makes the following claims:

One in five thugs who are caught carrying a gun or a knife are let off with a caution. This news once again exposes Labour’s complete failure on crime.

Gordon Brown’s Roll of Shame:

- One in five criminals caught carrying a weapon only get a caution
- Only one crime in a hundred ends with a punishment in court
- Two violent crimes committed every single minute

A little over 18 months ago, a friend of mine left work at about half past six in the evening and started to walk home.

He managed to walk only about 40 yards or so from his workplace when he was stopped by two PCSOs and subjected to a search, during which he was found to be carrying a Stanley knife.

As a result of this, he was issued with a fixed penalty notice for £80.

According to leaflets like this, my friend is both a ‘thug’ and a ‘criminal’, after all he is one of the one in five who ‘got off’ without being dragged in court after he found to be carrying a knife.

As you might well have guessed already, there’s an important detail I’ve yet to mention that casts this story is a somewhat different light, and that detail happens to be the nature of his place of work…

…A local hardware store and builder’s merchants.

My friend isn’t a thug and he certainly isn’t a criminal. He’s was just unlucky enough to forget to take the Stanley knife he uses as work out his pocket on a day on which he ran into a couple of PCSOs on a day who were were on the make and looking for any opportunity the could find to dish out a few tickets.

In fact, he swears to this day that the two PCSOs actually watched him leaving the shop and that that’s the only reason he was pulled over and searched – after all he’s in his late twenties and was wearing his normal work clothes at the time.

So my question to Lynne Featherstone, in whose constituency this leaflet is being delivered is…

Would you like to explain to be my friend exactly why your party is calling him a ‘thug’ and ‘criminal’?

I’ve been itching to get my paws on the latest Left Foot Forward report on the Lib Dem proposal to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. “Think Again, Nick!” (pdf) purports to show that, far from being the most redistributive policy on offer in this general election, it is in fact deeply regressive and a hallmark of the Lib Dems’ rightward shift.

I’ve been reading the headlines on both Left Foot Forward and Next Left over the weekend, thinking, “They’re not going to take the personal allowance proposal in isolation are they? Surely, this analysis must purport to show how, contrary to all the evidence I’ve seen, equalising capital gains, equalising tax relief on pensions, closing various other loopholes and introducing a mansions tax will actually have a minimal impact on the incomes of the wealthiest on society? That’s got to be some pretty bloody impressive research.”

How wrong I was continue reading… »

A couple of weeks ago James Graham helpfully documented one of the more rapid reverse ferrets in recent political history; the rapid withdrawal of a wholly idiotic Lib Dem statement made in response to the Science and Technology Committee’s recently published evidence check report on homeopathy. This week, James is back with a revised Lib Dem statement on homeopathy which he bizarrely describes as ’sensible and measured’. Frankly, ‘disingenuous and weaselling’ would be a rather more apt description of the new statement, which reads as follows:

A recent report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee examined the provision of homeopathy through the NHS and called for funding by the NHS to be stopped. The Committee did recognise that many users derive benefit from its use and did not argue that such treatments should be banned.

When it comes to NHS provision, we support a review by NICE into the cost effectiveness of Complementary and Alternative (CAMs) therapies, including homeopathy; as well as expanding the work of NICE to look at the cost-effectiveness of existing conventional treatments.

The Liberal Democrats believe that, as a basic principle, individuals should have maximum freedom about how they choose to get treated, so long as the therapy is safe. We know that many complementary therapies are popular with the public. The NHS budget is limited and we want to make sure that NHS funding is focused on treatments which are efficacious and cost-effective. NICE reviews of all existing treatments would give us the best possible basis for future decisions over funding.

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This is a guest post by Tim Fenton

Crewe and Nantwich is only one of almost 650 constituencies on the political map of the UK. But the by-election there in May 2008 holds important lessons for the upcoming General Election.

Following the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, Labour were between the proverbial rock and hard place: whether they called a snap by-election, or played a longer game, the Government’s unpopularity put them at a disadvantage. Moreover, they needed to select a candidate, and quickly.

Both Tory and Lib Dem already had candidates in place. Edward Timpson was, apparently, not well regarded by Tory HQ, but the crucial and sensible decision was made by Eric Pickles, chosen to manage the campaign, to stand by him. The Lib Dems, seemingly in a moment of panic, ditched their man in favour of Elizabeth Shenton, who then had start over with local activists. This gave the Tories a head start.

Pickles then managed expectations well, the press were fed stories of a “rock solid working class seat”, which could be easily disproved by a trip out to Nantwich – solidly Tory – or to outlying villages, and those new housing developments full of potential swing voters. But during the campaign, most of the assembled hackery saw little more than the area between Crewe station and the town centre, and so bought into the Tories’ well crafted myth.

Surprisingly, the media did little analysis on past elections, which would have disproved the myth of the working class stronghold. The last time a majority Tory Government was returned – in 1992 – Dunwoody’s majority was under 2,700. There had been only one instance of a five figure majority, that in 1997: then, the Tories had been caught in a perfect storm, unpopular nationally and disliked locally after the rail sell-offs caused delays in new train orders and the Works had to lay off staff.

Labour selected Dunwoody’s daughter Tamsin to fight the seat. Was this a good or bad thing? My take is that it had no bearing on the outcome. I reckon she was the best candidate, but Timpson’s shortcomings – he’s not a natural talker and doesn’t do charisma – were managed by Pickles guiding and coaching him, making sure he got his talking points over. It would be different in a General Election campaign, where the luxury of a personal minder would be missing, but that would be to miss the point. The matter at hand was winning the by-election.

The Tories were allowed to make the running from the start, and their focus was incessantly negative, and personal towards the PM. They stuck to this tack and their discipline held firm. Labour’s attempts to show Tamsin Dunwoody in a positive light made little impact. Elsewhere, Elizabeth Shenton was having difficulty making herself heard, despite Vince Cable being ever present.

The saturation media coverage, and the dispatch of every well known politician to Crewe and Nantwich, also had little additional impact: on one Saturday in mid-campaign, Simon Hughes turned up to assist Ms Shenton, while earlier, Jack Straw had brought his soap box to Crewe town centre, and took questions from all comers, but they need not have bothered. The same could be said of the “love bombing” of often bewildered shoppers in Asda, who for a moment were considered important enough to have even “Dave” Cameron pack their shopping. The parties’ efforts cancelled each other out.

Was the “Tory Toff” line wrong? Maybe, given that Timpson, although part of the shoe repair dynasty, is not a man of ostentatious wealth. But Labour make Cameron visibly uncomfortable whenever he is the target of such attacks, so the idea that this contest going the way of the Tories would stop them is groundless.

One controversy was generated by a Labour campaign leaflet, which Pickles called out as “racist”. I saw the offending flyer – the contentious part was the policy of ID cards for foreign nationals – and sent it on its way. Was it racist? I think not. Clumsy maybe, and more likely a policy cut and paste job. But racist it had been called, and once more the Tory discipline held: all those from the party venturing an opinion on the matter toed the line. Pickles is supposedly known for his “anti racism”, but on this occasion it seemed more a case of “accusing the opposition of racism at a time likely to cause them maximum damage, and keeping up the attack in order to prevent them effectively rebutting the accusation”. Given his role in the upcoming General Election campaign, look for that one to be wheeled out again.

The Tories then completed their mission by keeping up the campaigning until polling day. Labour did not. On the last Saturday, I spoke with a Labour supporter who assured me that they would return to get out the vote, but later that same day, a conversation with the campaign HQ on Nantwich Road left me with the impression they had given up. So it was: the evening of polling day was a quiet one in what I call “Redbrick Crewe”, the area that returns Labour and Lib Dem councillors. Labour had already admitted defeat: the Tory majority therefore flattered Timpson.

What will happen at the General Election? Well, unless the Tories score a substantial swing, Timpson will be unseated. David Williams, his next Labour opponent, has the presence and the patter: he is a natural politician. Edward Timpson will have served his purpose.

God, politics can be a bit depressing sometimes. Someone comes along with an unusual background wanting to be an MP, and what happens? All of us in the club smirk and nudge each other and roll out a series of pathetic double entendres, her party leader has to declaim her career, and an assembled phalanx of politicians and journalists act as if they’ve never so much seen a naked ankle. Bunch of hypocrites, the lot of us.

So a woman porn director wants to be an MP? Good for her. I’m sure the voters will be much more sensible about it than the political classes.

Anyway, from her wiki entry (I suspect parliamentary computers will prevent going much beyond wiki) she seems like someone with a real belief in personal freedom and choice rather than some sorry mens mag sleazoid, like, well, the owner of the Daily Express.

Fraser Nelson previews The Spectator’s interview with Nick Clegg, in which the LibDem leader has “put his heart into showing his hidden Tory side” according to the Speccy editor, who awards him a blue rose in noting his bid for a heir to Thatcher accolade.

It sounds as though it could be a major talking point at the LibDem spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, where it may not meet with universal acclaim among party members.

The LibDem leader is back in “savage cuts” territory, by arguing that the deficit should be dealt with only by spending cuts and no tax rises, which outflanks Cameron and Osborne on the right. (Nelson contrasts that with a Tory approach of 80% cuts to 20% tax rises ratio, and Labour 66% to 33%).

Age, he claims, has taught him the point of Maggie Thatcher. And, apparently, he now seems to see her as something of an inspiration, praising her for her victory over the trade unions.

Clegg may well be decisively outflanking the voters on their right too. continue reading… »

Guest post by Giles Wilkes

Given there is no sign at all that the Conservative’s disastrous 2010 campaign is likely to improve, this question of the economy’s performance with a minority government will continue.

A note from CitiGroup puts the case for the prosecution:

There is no consensus across the parties on fiscal policy, while Lib Dem voters disagree with the Conservatives on fiscal policy and prefer Labour’s policies on most other key political issues. Lib Dem voters would rather go into coalition with Labour than the Conservatives. We suspect that a hung parliament would only be able to implement and sustain major fiscal consolidation if boxed in by a market crisis. Gilts and sterling remain vulnerable.

The author acknowledges Nick Clegg’s recent vow ‘not to take any risk with UK plc’, and suspects that they LibDems will not cooperate unless given the Holy Grail of electoral reform in return. Which the Conservatives will never grant.

Clegg is getting annoyed:

“David Cameron and George Osborne are stoking up fears in the markets, actively trying to destabilise the pound and reduce the government’s ability to borrow. It’s like a protection racket: vote for us or our friends in the City will lay waste to your economy, your savings and your job.”

Too right. Chris Cook in the FT has a more nuanced summary of how things might pan out:

The threat of the LibDems pulling the plug on a government is overstated. The third party would, very quickly, be seen as co-culprits for the administration’s programme. So the LibDems would be stuck with them. If they then caused the fall of the government, they would be blamed for the chaos that follows … So the path of short-term naked self interest – the most powerful force in politics – would almost always be for the LibDems to back the administration.

The Lib Dems have the most to gain and the most to lose from the hung parliament situation. Their incentives are unambigiously in the direction of fiscal responsibility. No-ones goes around thinking “I can’t vote Lib Dem – they are too serious about the deficit”. A period where the LibDems hold the sensible middle of the debate: between diehard romantic deniers on the Labour benches, and blinkered trapped-in-the-1980s CutNowCutHarders on the other side, could gain them real credibility with a public worried about the difficult, um, balancing act that needs to be performed.

For the third general election in a row, the run-up is seeing numerous meetings and articles asking whether this election will be the first internet general election.

However, much – in fact, nearly all – of the discussion falls into two traps which are common across political journalism in the UK. First, an undue focus on the central, national picture and, second, an undue focus on the novel.

Ask those involved in organising internet campaigning for any of the major parties about what really matters and you’ll get two answers repeated. They repeatedly – and rightly – emphasise the importance of the internet for local campaigning and they also emphasise its importance for the equivalent of plumbing and sewage systems in a political party – that mostly hidden infrastructure which is vital to effective operation. continue reading… »

Guest post by Mark Reckons

Iain Dale has a post recently entitled: “Why Don’t the LibDems Select BME Candidates in Winnable Seats?”. He makes the argument that the Conservatives have BME candidates in a number of winnable seats and estimates they will have between 11 and 16 BME MPs after the next election. He suggests there will be none on the Lib Dem benches.

In the comments, a number of people have taken him to task about his assumptions. LibCync points out that Operation Black Vote has identified 3 potentially winnable seats for the Lib Dems with BME candidates. He also points out that Nick Clegg has taken action to try and resolve this issue.

Iain has rebutted this by suggesting that privately Lib Dem friends of his have expressed concern about the lack of BME representation and that the 3 seats identified are unlikely to be won.

I don’t know if the seats cited will or will not be won by the Lib Dems but it is in the nature of the third party within our current electoral system to struggle to win seats. We have very few “safe” seats compared to the Tories who (certainly this year) will expect to have over 300 seats following the election. So comparing the raw numbers is pretty unfair. It strikes me that 16 BME candidates who have a shot at becoming an MP would be roughly 5% of the Parliamentary Conservative Party were they elected. 3 for the Lib Dems assuming we end up with roughly 60 seats again would also be 5% were they elected. Seems about the same to me and hardly a crisis situation.

But taking Iain directly up on his point about the chances of the 3 candidates OBV identified being quite low. That may be the case but it is not the Lib Dems fault that the electoral system is so stacked against it. We want to reform the electoral system to STV with multi-member constituencies. From the Electoral Reform Society, here is the second point from their website on advantages of STV:

With STV and multi-member constituencies, parties have a powerful electoral incentive to present a balanced team of candidates in order to maximise the number of higher preferences that would go to their sponsored candidates. This helps the advancement of women and ethnic-minority candidates, who are often overlooked in favour of a ’safer’ looking candidate.

This is clearly an important issue and I am glad Iain is raising it. I wonder though if he might take another look at the benefits of electoral reform (that he has often been quick to dismiss in the past) and how it could help improve the chances of BME candidates for all parties.

Sunder Katwala has also done a very detailed piece in response to both Iain and my posts here.

This post originally appeared at Mark’s blog

Nick Clegg and the Libdem leadership have insisted on a policy of ‘equidistance’ from both main parties; putting forward various policy demands as a price for their support in any kind of deal.

While this might seem like good politicking it actually leaves the party vulnerable to ‘love-bombing’ from both sides.

But polling shows that the Libdem leadership are dangerously out of sync with the sentiment of Liberal Democrat voters.

The latest YouGov poll illustrated how the attitudes of Labour / Libdem voters tend to have more in common than Conservative / Libdems voters.

Liberal Democrat voters tend to prefer leading Labour politicians compared to Conservative ones.
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contribution by Jane Watkinson

The Tories are unfortunately good at presenting isolated cases of social hardship as ‘typical’ examples of the ‘dire’ state that our society is in.

Furthermore, their ‘Broken Britain’ narrative worryingly gives them legitimacy for centralised power and controls over the most intimate areas of our life.

As a staunch defender of civil rights and equality, I wonder if the Liberal Democrats would benefit from a campaign that highlighted the inherent contradictions within the Tory outlook.

Take the Conservatives’ views on the taxation involved to ‘fix’ the ‘Broken Britain’. The Liberal Democrats would benefit from contrasting their own progressive taxation promises to cut lower and middle income tax by £700 to the Tories outdated and civil right breaching marriage tax proposal.

How can a party that claims they want to give individuals more responsibility then seek to use the state to promote some type of ‘ideal’ family?
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[image by Gary Barker]

A General Election which always is a watershed moment in any countries political history.

This one will see a resurgent Conservative Party face an increasingly tired looking Labour Party and a Liberal Democrat Party that has aspirations to greatness.

Meanwhile, the Green Party could well be on the cusp of a breakthrough moment in Brighton Pavilion.

It is my sincere belief that David Cameron is wrong when he says that people throughout politics share a commitment to progress and that all the signs indicate the election of a Conservative government (with or without assistance from AN Other in the form of a coalition) will damage the cause of progress dramatically in this country.

Given that the question becomes for progressives; how do we stop this occurring? Do we look to Labour, the Lib Dems or the Greens?
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Nick Clegg celebrated his second anniversary as Liberal Democrat leader on the 18th of December. It was an occasion barely marked in the wider press which is probably a little strange given recent opinion polls have at least pointed to the possibility of a hung-parliament and thus increased Clegg’s potential relevance as a kingmaker.

So, what state does the third party find itself in?

In the polls the Liberal Democrats are hovering around the 20% mark but that barely tells the story of a year that has seen some problems most notably over our ‘narrative’ and policy wrangles like the one over tuition fees which brought Clegg into direct conflict with the leading policy making body; the Federal Policy Committee.

It was a conflict that Clegg lost eventually although he did win the concession that fees will be ‘phased-out’ over 6 years.

Clegg’s ambition is outlined in his pamphlet The Liberal Moment in which he argues the time is neigh for the Lib Dems to overtake Labour. However, in my experience there is no evidence that this collapse is anything more than cyclical disillusionment with a government that has been in power for a long time.
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The old socialist slogan that the worst imaginable Labour government is still preferable to the best imaginable Conservative government has been sorely tested over the last 12 years.

Not only did we not get the New Jerusalem, what we have lived through barely qualifies as a Barratt estate hastily flung up on the outskirts of the greater Tel Aviv conurbation.

But anybody who was politically aware in the 1980s knows full well what a Tory administration means for the poor, the sick, children in the state education system, patients in NHS hospitals, organised workers and benefit claimants. Surely any other government – any other government whatsoever – has to be better than that?

With the polls now pointing to a distinct possibility of a hung parliament, this question will be widely debated in the months ahead. If a Lib-Lab pact is the sole alternative to Cameron, there will be tremendous pressure on the left to grasp at such a straw, and gratefully at that.

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The year is 1982 and the soundtrack is Town called malice, Come on Eileen and Should I stay or should I go. The boys look good in rockabilly-inspired flat top haircuts, lumberjack shirts and 501s, while ra-ra skirts and leggings are all the rage for girls. Israel invades Lebanon, Britain and Argentina go to war over some islands somewhere in the South Atlantic, and Italy wins the world cup.

That was the last time Labour trailed the Lib Dems – or the Liberal-SDP Alliance, as they were back in the day – in the opinion polls. But the latest survey from Ipsos Mori gives Labour just 24%, one percentage point behind Clegg and co, with the Tories on 36%. And Cameron hasn’t had to kill a single Argie to get there.
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The Lib Dem ‘Mansion Tax’ policy could hardly have been presented more ineptly. The person who announced it hadn’t told his colleagues about it, and wasn’t able to answer simple questions about how it would actually work.

Furthermore, as with any policy which attempts to get rich people to pay more tax, there was a lot of very hostile coverage by the rich people who own and write in newspapers.

And yet for all that, I am willing to bet that if an opinion pollster asked people “Do you support or oppose a ‘Mansion Tax’ on homes worth over £1 million?” then a majority would support it, and if you asked “Do you think the government should introduce a new tax on homes worth over £1 million to pay for income tax cuts for lower and middle earners?” then an even bigger majority would support it.

Maybe one of those newspapers which has been telling us what an electoral disaster the policy would be will commission a poll and we could find out.

Yesterday, David Cameron wrote a piece for The Observer, making a pitch to Lib Dem voters to desert to the Tories join a ‘national movement that can bring real change’.  After rattling off a list of areas (e.g. the environment, civil liberties, ID cards) in which the Tories and Lib Dems supposedly speak with one voice, he said there was “barely a cigarette paper between us” in various policy areas.

Responding to the Cameron article, the Lib Dems took the only path realistically open to them: angry denial.  Sunny Hundal says that “Nick Clegg… to his credit, is not touching Cameron with a bargepole.”

But it’s not really a reason to praise Clegg that he rebuffed Cameron – he couldn’t have done anything else.  Despite the pretense that he was offering genuine rapprochement, Cameron’s claim that, on many issues, there’s no difference between the two parties was really just code for: ‘Look Lib Dem voters, these days we cater to your pet issues too. So how about you find out what it feels like to be part of the winning side for a change, eh?’.  That message was seen by the Lib Dems for what it was: profoundly threatening. Hence the vehement rebuttal.

The Lib Dems, though, would idiots if they didn’t see this threat brewing.
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So Vince Cable has announced Lib Dem policy to introduce a “Mansion Tax” targeting the very wealthiest. The tax would be paid at a rate of 0.5% on the value of properties over £1m, and would affect around 250,000 people who would pay an average of £4,000 a year.

Cable – unlike the Tories – has apparently been reading his Adam Smith, who said:

The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principle expense of the rich; and a magnificent house establishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be any thing very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in proportion” (The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch II, Pt II, Art 1).

But it’s also a shot across Tory bows: “You want to give millionaires a tax break? We want to reel them in and help ordinary people”. Not only is this the right thing to be saying in a country where inequality has increased – it is likely to be electorally wise.
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Nick Clegg today published a paper by Demos called ‘The Liberal Moment‘ which, at 92 pages, is not exactly light reading alongside your afternoon tea. But I’ve skimmed through it. And unlike Dave Osler I have a few positive things to say about it.

First, the political positioning. I agree with James Graham in thinking that Nick Clegg is ending Lib Dem equidistance. About time too. With many on the progressive left arguing, with the impending wipe-out of Labour power, that Libdems and Labour should join forces to defeat the Tories, Nick Clegg points out why he won’t do so. But at the same time pointing out why ‘progressive’ (meaning leftwing) voters should support the Libdems.

Liberalism, he says, is about the distribution of power. That is music to my ears because I’ve always seen the left as more obsessed about the distribution of power than simply liberty (on the basis that there is little liberty without power). And it is with good reason that’s he making a pitch for former Labour voters: he points out that despite its stated intentions to help the weakest and poorest many of Labour’s policies has hurt them most, especially on tax. His points seems to be to tell Polly Toynbee at el: look, you have to understand where I’m coming from ideologically before you think I’m going to jump in bed with Labour to ward off the Tories.
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