Liberal Democrats MPs really will say anything to get elected.
Liberal Democrats MPs really will say anything to get elected
With the General Election looming, many Liberal Democrat MPs are understandably trying to distance themselves from the toxic coalition in the hope that it may help them hold on to their parliamentary seat next May.
In fact, it looks like some may be willing to say anything to disassociate themselves from Cameron and Osborne, including flatly contradicting things they’ve said in the very recent past.
Cue David Laws, Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil and former deputy to chancellor George Osborne.
According to David Laws, speaking today, the chancellor’s spending plans are a ‘political suicide note’. As Laws put it:
“This will be seen to be a very extreme and very right-wing suicide note because all those people who care about the education service, about the police, about the armed forces … will see that the plans they have put forward are hugely damaging and dangerous.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Yet this flatly contradicts words which came out of the mouth of the very same David Laws a mere two years ago.
In a 2012 interview with the Telegraph, Laws boldly outflanked the Tories on the right by arguing that the share of the economy accounted for by the public sector ought to be cut back to 35 per cent.
Public sector spending has hovered at around 40 per cent for decades, but jumped to 49 per cent in 2010-11 on the back of a rise in welfare outgoings triggered by the global financial crisis.
But for Laws, speaking in 2012, this was unacceptable; he wanted further swingeing cuts more drastic even than those planned by George Osborne. As Laws mused:
“The implication of the state spending 40 per cent of national income is that there is likely to be too much resource misallocation and too much waste and inefficiency.”
So why the sudden change of heart?
We would certainly never dream of suggesting that Liberal Democrats MPs will say anything to get elected.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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42 Responses to “2012: MORE CUTS. 2014: FEWER CUTS. Will the real David Laws please stand up?”
AlanGiles
Because they all know there is everything to play for, members of all three main parties will do or say anything in the run-up to the election, however contradictory and hypocritical they make themselves: The Two Ed’s constantly repeated “too far too fast” but at the time of the Autumn statement they seemed to be suggesting it wasnt far or fast enough. They all look fools and indeed they are fools
David Lindsay
The man belongs in prison. If you stole a lot less than that in Housing Benefit, then you would be banged up.
Leon Wolfeson
Sure, if you want to end democracy.
swat
Oh come on! We’re talking Lib Dems here! Say one thing and do another. Two faced gits; completely out of Focus. Lets hope Labour doesn’t turn into a LibDem-lite Party under the weak leadership of Milliband.
ForeignRedTory
‘We would certainly never dream of suggesting that Liberal Democrats MPs will say anything to get elected.’
Why not? That is simply the normal business of the political game. The only quibble we can make is that it is a bit trollish to implicate that this is some kind of exclusive LibDem sin. The only politicians who don’t have to stoop like this are the ones who are not going to be elected anyway.