Nick Clegg now claims that he sold out on deficit reduction before May 6th - despite going into the election committed to a deficit reduction plan closer to Labour than the Conservatives.
Following Mervyn King’s appearance at the Treasury select committee yesterday, in which he distanced himself from Nick Clegg’s claim that it was only after meeting him he had changed his mind on the deficit, the Liberal Democrat leader now claims that he sold out on deficit reduction before May 6th – despite going into the election committed to a deficit reduction plan closer to Labour than the Conservatives.
In the BBC2 documentary ‘Five days that changed Britain’, to be broadcast tonight at 9:00, he tells BBC political editor Nick Robinson:
“I changed my mind earlier than that [the Coaltion negotiations] … firstly remember between March and the actual general election … a financial earthquake occurred in on our European doorstep.”
When pressed on why he failed to tell the electorate of his conversion, he says:
“… to be fair we were all … reacting to very, very fast-moving economic events.”
Shadow chief secretary Liam Byrne this afternoon accused Clegg of “simply” misleading voters:
“This shows Nick Clegg simply misled voters. He’d clearly decided before the election that David Cameron was his partner of choice.”
On June 6th, Clegg was singing a very different tune in The Observer in an interview with Andrew Ransley, who wrote:
“It is on the economy that the Lib Dems have executed their greatest somersault since the election. Throughout the campaign they castigated the Tories as schoolboy fools for planning immediate spending cuts; now they have fallen in with the plan.
“‘Our view has shifted,’ accepts Clegg. ‘To be fair to us, it shifted because the world around us changed.’ He claims as his alibi ‘the complete belly-up implosion in Greece’, which made it imperative to demonstrate to the markets that the coalition would make an early start on deficit reduction.
“Another influence was ‘a long conversation a day or two after the government was formed’ with Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. ‘He couldn’t have been more emphatic. He said: “If you don’t do this, then because of the deterioration of market conditions it will be even more painful to do it later.’”
Serious questions now need to be asked: if Clegg had changed his mind before the election on spending cuts, why did he not tell the electorate before polling day? The electorate deserved to know what they were voting for and he did not tell them this. His initial position was along the lines of ‘I changed my mind because of what the Governor told me’, King says he told him nothing and now Clegg claims to have made up his mind long before.
Just as with Forgemasters, however, his explanation may be a long time coming, if ever.
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28 Responses to “Now Clegg claims he changed mind on deficit before the election”
Anon E Mouse
Mr.Sensible – Please read your name Mr.Sensible and get a grip.
If Labour supports AV and they vote against it for some type of childish political reason then they don’t really believe in it.
“What a mess” . Please get a grip – this is nothing compared to the last bunch with torture allegations, secret deals with the Saudi’s, rendition flights, underfunding our own troops, losing data… I could write pages and pages of the incompetence of Labour’s thirteen years in office and all sourced by evidence and witnessed by Labour Party members.
This really is nothing and I remember Labour saying they wouldn’t use tuition fees and had legislated against it yet we still have them. .
Diane Abbott condemns private education and sends her sons to a public school.
Harriet Harman is deputy leader of the party while they run a Tory Toffs campaign and she is a countess’s niece and her husband Jack Dromey is given a safe Labour seat yet she claims positive discrimination for woman.
John Prescott, the class warrior is playing croquet. Lisbon Treaty. Jack Straw joins a protest against post office closures in Blackburn and yet votes for their closures in the commons. It never ends.
If you think this is a mess you have lost it. I watched Nick Robinson’s program last night and I believe he lied in two places but compared to the devastation inflicted on our country by Labour so what?
Labour supporters have got to rise above these petty stories and get real – this country needs a powerful opposition and these types of articles will just alienate potential voters.
I’ve been saying it on this blog forever and have been proven right…
Terry
Mouse you state “Jack Dromey is given a safe Labour seat”
How
he won it by a ballot of members
so was not given as you yet again wrongly suggest
with your daily Mail Haarriet Hairpserson views
Mouse your lies are such a bore
Mr. Sensible
Mouse, Labour doesn’t support voting reform?
Read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/30/voting-reform-and-vested-interests
Anon E Mouse
Terry – Sorry, how stupid of me to think that the deputy leader of the LABOUR Party would do what she said:
“In August 2009 it was revealed that Labour planned to parachute Dromey into a safe seat in the Leyton and Wanstead constituency for the 2010 general election.[12]
Such a possibility was unpopular with local Labour Party members[13] and doubly controversial given that Dromey’s wife Harriet Harman has long campaigned for such seats to be All-women shortlists.[10]
The party’s candidates for the constituency were due to be announced in November 2009, though this was delayed for at least two months, with The Daily Telegraph alleging that the announcement was going to be made at the last possible minute so Dromey could be imposed as the candidate using emergency rules.[14]
It was revealed in January 2010 that the seat would not be subject to an All women shortlist.[15]
In February 2010, Siôn Simon, Labour MP for Birmingham, Erdington since June 2001, announced his intention to stand down from office at the 2010 general election.
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party swiftly announced that Birmingham Erdington would be an open short-list.
Jack Dromey was confirmed to have made that short-list. It was further confirmed on 27 February 2010, that Dromey was selected as the Labour Party candidate for Birmingham, Erdington.[16] He was elected on 6 May.[1]”
Now read the paragraphs above Terry and if you are of good character you can publicly apologise for calling me a liar.
It was a stitch up and as a (previously)lifelong Labour supporter and voter may I say it is attitudes like yours which are essentially dishonest and amongst other things cost Labour the last election by putting ordinary voters off.
Since you obviously have an interest in politics to be participating in this fine blog, may I suggest you actually take the time to get evidence for your public remarks as I do. That may save you looking so thick when you get it wrong Terry…
I will say though that despite an excellent education at the same school (the girls not boys) as George Osbourne, our chancellor, anyone who has the user name and password of “Harriet” and “Harman” and complains when they get hacked can’t be that bright.
Mr.Sensible – Thanks for the link but whatever the excuses (reduction of MP’s) Labour always blames someone else. “The pound in your pocket” / “Worldwide banking crisis” etc.
No matter what their excuses are, Labour either support and are going to vote for AV or they’re not. And it appears they’re not…
PS. Did you enjoy my link to Neil Kinnock btw…
Tommy
‘No matter what their exuses are, Labour either support and are going to vote for AV or they’re not’. This is willfully stupid. If there were a bill supporting an increase in child benefit which included a restoration of the death penalty, and Labour decided to oppose this bill, presumably that makes them fundamentally opposed to increasing child benefit does it? The critical point is whether the other things included in the bill are serious enough for Labour to vote it down. They’ve concluded (rightly in my view) that they are.
As for ‘previously lifelong Labour supporter’: when does this date from? You’ve been posting anti-Labour views on here ever since the blog started. Also, if you’re going to be snide about Harriet Harman’s education, then perhaps you should improve your own spelling: it’s ‘Osborne’, not ‘Osbourne’, dear.