More like this
Coalition at risk as budget truth begins to emerge
The Mole: ‘Very tough and bloody unfair’ emergency budget could push some Lib-Dems over the edge
As the aftershocks emerge, it's beginning to look as though Boy George Osborne's "tough but fair" emergency budget was anything but. "Very tough tough and bloody unfair is more like it," one Lib-Dem MP told the Mole yesterday, as Osborne and David Cameron let slip further possible cuts to welfare and pensions that didn't come out - or weren't totally clear - when the torrent of facts and figures came tumbling out on Tuesday.
As a result, the fragility of the coalition government has been seriously exposed. Simon Hughes, the Lib-Dems' newly elected deputy leader, and guardian of the party's liberal traditions, dared to say yesterday that he and other Lib-Dems might feel bound to table rebel amendments to the finance bill, especially if pensioner benefits were cut.
"If there are measures in the finance bill where we can improve fairness, and make for a fairer Britain, then we will come forward with amendments to do that because that is where we make the difference," Hughes said.
Osborne has made it abundantly clear that welfare is the big target, suggesting that he might cut the welfare bill by more than the £11bn he earmarked on Tuesday. If he can get another £13bn off the overall bill, he says he can keep the departmental cutbacks to 20 per cent instead of the 25 per cent he predicted in his Commons statement.
Hughes isn't the only one questioning this strategy. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this week, the proposed welfare cuts mean that the poorest tenth of society lose about 2.5 per cent of their income, while the wealthiest will lose only one per cent.
Many backbenchers are wondering how long Lib-Dems like Vince Cable will take it, while Nick Clegg is looking shiftier by the minute.
Tory John Redwood's suggestion yesterday that people worried about the budget should wear more clothes and turn the heating down - shades of Tebbit's 'get on your bike' speech from 1981 - was a timely reminder to many Lib-Dems that they are sharing the Commons benches with the enemy.
It looks like being a long sweaty summer for the junior partners in the coalition - with a showdown at September's Lib-Dem party conference in Liverpool looking inevitable.
"Remember," said the Mole's Lib-Dem whisperer, "only five of us are in the Cabinet, getting the kicks of being in power. There's another 52 MPs, many of whom are asking what the hell happened to their ideals." ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
See your back stiring again Mole,I'd hoped you'd get the message by now.All you lefties are busy trying to split the liberals because you know its your last hope,no dice little man.
The ordinary man in the street, I spoke to my window cleaner in the street at length only yesterday - a friend of long-standing and a sound church-goer - does feel mystified by the existence of the ConLibDem con alliance. He thinks back (yes, he does have a memory), and reviews the last few decades of LibDem, "we are the alternative" tosh, and then looks on in astonishment at the instant lash up alliance that is smooth boy Clegg and smoothie Dave after the last pseudo-election. He wonders what his vote means if anything, and what they mean when they speechify, if anything. But I was able to put his mind to rest in one: there is no real difference between them. A politician's number one priority is to be elected, his number two priority is to be re-elected, and number three...everything else. He was relieved to have me explain the world of con and spin so succinctly to him. He went back to work, lamenting his taxes and the regulatory burdens and 'elf'n'safety' guidelines that run his otherwise happy life. But farbeit from me to burden him with explanations of those...
Fairness is now a watchword, so in comparing percentages of income lost what needs to be compared is the percentage of disposable income lost, not the percentage of gross income lost. For a family or an individual on benefits, disposable income is likely to be close to zero, or even negative, hence the 'benefit' of Emergency Loans. Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and their rich supporters have disposable incomes unimaginable to their least well-off constituents.
Nick Clegg always seemed a lightweight to me and other discerning people. He is the main reason why I never considered voting Lib Dem and I know that some of my friends share this view. With luck he and Cameron will get their 5 years of power, if we think things were bad in early 2010, just wait for 2016 at the rate at which they are going!
I should have known better. At my age [72] to believe the fucking tories.....but i did, and though i actually didn't vote for them, i didn't vote Labour for the first time in my life, instead i voted LIB-DEM, hoping to provide a safety cushion against extremes. Never again will i ever vote for anyone...There all lying bastards.
How quickly OSBOURNE rubbed his hands at the thought of emasculating Disability claimants among others, but never once mentioned in any way shape or form the sending back of illegal immigrants who are draining the country's resources, or deporting the 20% of criminals from other lands.
Lib Dems have signed their death warrant in the likes of Liverpool and elsewere....and sod them all.
Why aim to save £13bn from Welfare ? Why not go the whole hog and save £104bn by cancelling Trident?
Reducing benefits does not mean taking away; just giving away less. If benefits are too high then it seems sensible to reduce them. Defining the right level is a problem, one that will not be solved by appeal to some notion of fairness...that is just a spin word against which no-one can argue, a bit like motherhood and apple pie.
I'm sick of hearing talk of "fair". It is meaningless.
It's class war, pure and simple. The Lib Dems were naive if they ever thought any different.
This is the Labour party spin point of the day yes Mr Mole. But what about some insight please ? I believe the John Redwood quote is false as he claims here http://bit.ly/aUH2b1 , it looks like a Daily Mail hatchet job http://bit.ly/dtuPKV . Isn't the truth that more of the unsustainable debt driven spending was aimed at bribing Labour voters and that that automatically means they will suffer when the money has to be paid back. These are Labour's cuts. But your right the Lib Dems have a problem, but its not the one you suggest, its really facing up to reality and growing up. I wouldn't put money of Simon Hughes managing it.
Simon Hughes a "liberal? Not in the true sense of the word. The "liberal traditions" of the Lib-Dems are represented by the small-state policies of the Coalition, not by the mini-Marxists of the Hughes wing.