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.
28 Responses to “Now Clegg claims he changed mind on deficit before the election”
Mike
@Mouse:
Labour supports AV. They don’t support backroom fiddling of the boundaries. The coalition chose of their own free will to combine the two into an all or nothing bill.
You’re ridiculous Anon E Mouse. If people disagree, they must be lying! After all, how can a person honestly vote for someone that Anon E Mouse doesn’t like? It’s simply inconcievable that not everyone agrees with Anon E Mouse!
Anon E Mouse
Mike – The coalition is in government and can combine as many parts of a bill as they like – the two are linked and my guess is that people in this country want LESS MP’s – you really will be in a minority if you want more.
Labour, as with any other bill put before the house, is perfectly capable of modifying and debating the sections of it and voting against them before it is sent to the other place.
To suggest that this bill is any different from any other bill is dishonest as far as I’m concerned – it is just a bill put to the house, nothing more, nothing less.
What Labour don’t like is that this government is running rings round them and dismantling their stupid legislation as top speed – on Adam Boulton last Sunday Alan Johnson said the public wanted CCTV and speed camera’s and stuff – talk about out of touch.
Where did I say if someone disagree’s with me they must be lying? All I said was that it is dishonest to suggest, in the case discussed, that Jack Dromey wasn’t parachuted in – he was. Ask Steve Bedser if you don’t believe me and ask Peter Watt for his opinion of Dromey, a treasurer of Labour who didn’t know about the finances? Yeah right.
The whole thing stinks Mike and if you believe that supporting dishonest undemocratic practices by the Labour Party will return them to government you are completely wrong.
I have linked to Kinnock and his best ever speech to a conference and yet not one person on this fine blog has said that they support debate and discussion. Speaks volumes….
Gez
Mouse
so me and the 170 members who voted didnt count
we decided not the NEC between 3 candidates and jack won by a mile
We voted for Jack beacuse hes a good MP (just because you hate his wife like all Daily mail readers)
Apology welcome
Anon E Mouse
Gez – I read The Times in paper form and The Guardian online – never read the Mail and I don’t hate anyone – stop trying to smear me. I don’t like Labour double standards.
1. After Simple Simon stood down the choice was between three decent Labour local candidates and should have been a woman from the Equalities Minister’s All Women Shortlist but Harman missed the NEC meeting (she wasn’t alone) to discuss it. That’s when the dinosaur, Jack Dromey, was parachuted in. He’d tried to get in a safe Labour seat previously but the local activists stood up to the NEC and should have done here. Shame on you Gez.
Who was the Equalities Minister promoting the AWS? His wife, the toff, Harriet Harman. That doesn’t seem odd to you?
2. Jack Dromey did not “win by a mile” – it was supposedly 58% – which is not a mile – not that it was open and transparent, stitch ups rarely are.
3. There were also four candidates, not three as claim and you say you voted for him “because he’s a good MP” (I corrected your spelling for you there Gez – see your English teacher next time) but that’s my point.
He WASN’T an MP at that stage – it was a Labour stitch up and everyone knows it.
Did you actually vote in this ballot or are you simply making things up I wonder? Hmmmmm…
Blank
Mouse – I play croquet in my parents back garden occasionally, does that make me a ‘toff’? I just mean that you could have chosen a better example of Prescott’s corruption, because in my view the fact that ‘normal’ people play croquet could demonstrate that it is becoming more mainstream instead of purely a pursuit of the rich; sorry for the pedantic rant:).
On the subject of Nick Clegg misleading the electorate, yes it was wrong, but as Mouse earlier said, a lot of politicians do it. In my view its not a major issue because the Lib Dem’s ‘popularity’ in the leadership debates failed to manifest itself in a larger portion of the votes, for me demonstrating that people were largely indifferent to Clegg anyway. If that is the case, then it was rather undemocratic that Clegg, who failed to gain an election breakthrough, was for a time ‘kingmaker’.