It is amazing how office, or the prospect of office, concentrates the minds of politicians. The latest example is Vince Cable, until recently the hero of the Keynesian left at Westminster. Up to and during the general election campaign, he was in no doubt that hurrying into immediate public spending cuts would endanger Britain’s economic recovery. But he is Business Secretary now, and lo! He has changed his mind.
Much the same applies to Vince’s leader, Nick Clegg. He too was fearful about the threat to the recovery posed by George Osborne’s plan to slash £6 billion off the spending budget this year. He didn’t actually use the words “I agree with Gordon”, but that’s what he meant.
But behold! He is Deputy Prime Minister now, and he too has changed his mind. Both men are deeply involved in the £6 billion programme of cuts already in place for this year, and are committed to the vastly larger programme of cuts being prepared by Osborne for his emergency Budget later this month.
So was it the appeal of the ministerial red boxes which brought about the change of heart? Oh dear me no. They were, it seems, “persuaded” by Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, in the light of the Greek debt crisis.
I can’t say I am greatly surprised by the conversion of Clegg – he was always well out on the rightward fringes of his party. But I am frankly shocked by Cable’s conduct. He seemed to me to be a genuine Keynesian economist – and a good one. His change of sides looks very much like a sell-out.
It is all the more extraordinary in view of his treatment by David Cameron. Cable was clearly the best-qualified candidate for the number two job at the Treasury, but Chancellor Osborne wouldn’t have Cable as his deputy at any price. Instead they got David Laws, leading directly to the coalition Government’s first crisis. Cable got
Business and his first task on arriving at his ministerial desk was to deliver a massive contribution to the cuts programme from his department, as demanded by his Liberal Democrat colleague Laws.
Did Cable resist? I don’t know, but perhaps his views partly account for the comical tone of Clegg’s interview with the Observer last weekend, in which he launched the ludicrous concept of “progressive cuts”. According to Clegg, the coalition’s cuts would not be like the horrid, beastly cuts of Margaret Thatcher’s Government back in the 1980s. Instead they would be nice, gentle, kindly cuts – progressive cuts, indeed.
God knows how this will play with civil servants who lose their jobs as a result of the cuts. Perhaps the person doing the sacking will be instructed to shed a few tears while he is wielding the knife, rather as the walrus and the carpenter did while eating the oysters. But I don’t remember that the oysters were particularly grateful; by then, they had all been eaten.
Which may well turn out to be the fate of Clegg and Cable, along with the rest of the Lib Dems. Personally, I can’t see any way in which this ill-begotten coalition can survive for long, and when it collapses it will be the Lib Dem half which suffers worst. Like the oysters, they are going to be eaten – and serve them jolly well right.
In the meantime, the Labour Party has the small matter of a leadership election to cope with – and already things are going wrong. Almost everyone seems to be agreed that it will be an outrage if the two left wing candidates are kept off the ballot paper because they can’t secure nomination by
33 MPs, as demanded by the rulebook. But that is the rule.
Or is it? In a letter to Tribune last week, Vladimir Derer cited another rule which made it clear that constituency parties and MEPs could also nominate candidates, but claimed that it was being ignored by the National Executive Committee.
Now, Vladimir Derer is a man who knows a thing or two about the party rulebook – he probably keeps a copy under his pillow every night. So why has nothing happened?
I have a personal interest in the outcome, since it is my intention to cast my first preference vote for Diane Abbott and my second for Ed Miliband. But it is a plan which can only be put into action if our cowed, over-whipped parliamentary party puts her on the ballot paper. I shall be very angry indeed if they deprive me of my right to vote for the candidate of my choice and I shan’t be alone.
Why Diane Abbott? Well, mainly because she is a good left-wing economist, who first showed her paces as a member of the Treasury select committee way back in the Thatcher years, until the whips took her off it.
What’s more, she has a spark of life about her – which is more than can be said for far too many her colleagues on the dreary Labour benches.
