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
42 Responses to “2012: MORE CUTS. 2014: FEWER CUTS. Will the real David Laws please stand up?”
robertcp
I agree. We should encourage all people to vote.
AlanGiles
Because of the constant double messages: too far, too fast, or not far and fast enough.
Another example: Welfare. Duncan-Smith is incompetent, unfeeling, a spendthrift idiot. Yet the dreadful Rachel Reeves has said she will be “tougher than the Tories on welfare”
You can’t – they can’t – have it both ways. So much of what they say is posturing, trying to point in two directions at once.
Just coating every speech with a batter of “fairness” doesn’t wash.
Tom
Yes, and the point is that both of those criticisms are valid at the same time. IDS is incompetent, unfeeling, and has cut benefits to those who desperately need them with the stated aim of saving money.
Yet it is precisely because of this incompetence that Rachel Reeves can also be ‘tougher on welfare’ [note, not tougher on welfare recipients]. She will reduce welfare expenditure much more effectively than IDS if Labour succeed in moving people into well-paid work, and in tackling rising rents, whereas IDS has failed due to rising numbers of people needing support, and increasing rents.
The rhetoric is obviously posturing, but I can’t see that the underlying claims are incompatible.
AlanGiles
True Duncan-Smith wants to take us back to the 60s – the 1860s, however Reeves is in my opinion just trying to hold a Dutch auction on who will bully the weak more effectively to try to catch the eye of the Daily Mail and the Sun.
You must let me know sometime where Reeves is going to find this “well paid work”
Tom
I’d certainly agree that she’s trying to catch the eye of the Daily Mail/Sun, and I’m not convinced that her rhetorical plan is particularly sound. But the idea of ‘predistribution’ (the Fabians are great with catchy names…) has been pretty well developed since Miliband was elected. So you keep the same jobs but, say, increase the minimum wage = lower in-work benefits without creating new jobs.
It would work particularly well with rent controls, but sadly they don’t seem to be in the offing.