Nine months ago Nick Clegg vowed to remove government special advisers' salaries from the taxpayers burden. He is now spending £165,000 on his two spads.
Just nine months after Nick Clegg vowed to remove government special advisers’ salaries from the taxpayers burden, the Cabinet Office yesterday revealed that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is charging the taxpayer £165,000 for press spokeswoman Lena Pietsch and political adviser Richard Reeves.
In September 2009, Nick Clegg set out his money saving pledge in ‘A better politics for less‘:
“Special Advisors will not be paid for by the taxpayer”
“The government currently employs 74 Special Advisers in the central departments, an increase of more than 90% since 1995, at a cost to the taxpayer of £5.9m each year. These are political jobs, and should, therefore, be funded by political parties.”
At the time, the Liberal Democrats estimated that taxpayer savings would amount to some £5.9 million.
Any coalition would have required necessary compromises between the two parties, but a point of political principle such as not charging taxpayers for special advisers’ salaries was within the gift of the Liberal Democrats alone.
This could and should have been maintained even as the the Lib Dems went from opposition to government. The short term expediency of ditching a campaign pledge for the trappings of office is precisely the kind of matter that the Lib Dems would once have rightly hounded government ministers on.
32 Responses to “Special expediency”
yorkierosie
RT @leftfootfwd: Special expediency – Clegg backtracks on pledge to pay special advisers out of party coffers http://bit.ly/b3ikou
Anon E Mouse
Mr.Sensible – Regardless of how this coalition was put together they still command a higher percentage of the UK electorate than any Labour government ever had.
Why are you complaining anyway? Not one person elected that last useless idiot Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.
Mind you neither did anyone in the Labour Party…
Nicholas Alcock
What’s the problem? Nick Clegg is a Tory! Surely, his administrative costs should be borne by either the government or the Tory party!
Nicholas Alcock
@ Anon E Mouse
The difference is that the Labour party manifesto was carried out 90% whereas the Liberal Democrats have ditched 90% of their manifesto the day Nick Clegg capitulated to his fellow public schoolboy!
Command a higher percentage of votes than Labour ever did? If the Conservative party could have won more votes than Labour in 1997 and 2001 they would have done so. If the Liberal Democrats had told voters they were going to ditch 90% of their manifesto to join the Tories they would not have received a fraction of the votes they did!
Danivon
Anon E Mouse – oh, so that’s ok then. People elected him, so he can blithely go back on the promises he made when trying to get elected.
Newsflash – you can stop going on about Gordon Brown now, the election campaign is over. You Tory trolls have the government you wanted, ok?