Clegg and Cameron and their parties are the ones who are too dependent on state hand-outs - not Scotland, Wales, Northern-Ireland and the North of England ; and their austerity policies (welfare for rich party donors at everyone else's expense) are preventing us getting out of debt

Could someone tell the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that they are patronising hypocrites when they try to tell the people of this country - apparently including the whole of Scotland, the North of England, Northern Ireland and Wales according to Nick Clegg - that they can't afford to fund our supposed dependency on welfare any more ; and liars or delusional when they tell us their policies are reducing our debts and our deficit.

At their public relations press conference at a tractor factory in Essex the other day, Cameron and Clegg helpfully explained that they had no choice but to cut the deficit by any means necessary to get us out of debt.

Never mind that their so-called austerity policies - welfare for the richest, cuts for the the majority, (including those who need it most - the disabled, unemployed, poor and pensioners) have pushed us back into recession, unemployment over 2.6 million (with the short term fall of 35,000 soon to be wiped out again by a longer term rise to an estimated 2.85 million by the end of the year). Just to top it off they've actually actually increased the trade deficit (value of exports, minus value of imports) by almost £1 billion between January and February this year alone , by making the vicious circle of falling demand and rising unemployment that happens in a recession worse by sacking so many teachers, doctors, nurses and lecturers and by denying benefit to or cutting benefits for the disabled, unemployed, pensioners and working people on low incomes. Given all that any fall in the budget deficit will be short term and soon reversed without a change in policy (1) - (4).

(For instance the abolition of almost all tax credits has more than cancelled out any benefits to those working on low incomes from raising the starting rate for paying income tax to £8,000. While the 50p tax rate for the richest was cut, the starting rate for the 40% tax rate was lowered, so hitting middle and upper middle earners harder too. ) (5) - (7) (I have to admit here to having been wrong in supporting replacing tax credits with a higher starting rate for income tax)

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also explained (at the tractor factory) that Scotland, the North of England, Wales and Northern Ireland had all become too dependent on state hand-outs and that this "gravy train" was fine during the boom times but that we couldn't afford it any more.

(Watched this live on the BBC's News 24 , but can't find a complete transcript of it nor a complete video online)

Cameron and Clegg are paid with taxpayer money and dependent on throwing public money and lives to banks, arms companies (including as they sell arms to dictatorships killing Arab Spring democracy protesters), the PFI and PPP contractors, privatised rail operators and the pointless Afghanistan war and the Olympic circus like there's no tomorrow ; while allowing the recipients of taxpayers' money to avoid taxes themselves through tax havens. This gets them donations to their election campaigns from the recipients of these subsidies and tax breaks - big banks, firms and billionaires donating to party funds (8) - (10).

What have Cameron or Clegg ever done for the people of Scotland, Wales, the North of England, Northern Ireland, or the UK as a whole, in return for their £130,000 plus state funded annual salaries - five times the median wage - other than rob us to pay donors to party funds, while pretending that we simply don't understand that whatever's best for them and their donors must be what's best for everyone? (which is a pathetic fallacy based on a false assumption of identity of interests.) (11)

That's apart from the fact that London gets immensely higher levels of public spending on the infrastructure required for a strong economy (particularly transport) than any other part of the UK - and that the heads of the City of London's financial sector are the ones who caused the crisis and recession and who are paying themselves obscene bonuses with taxpayers' money. We are all now paying for the City of London's financial sector - and the Channel Island, Man , Belize and Cayman Island tax havens which caused the financial crisis and will cause another unless they're shut down (12).

Even the banks that didn't get bailed out were only saved from falling like dominoes as banks did in the 1929 Great Crash in the US by the majority of taxpayers paying for the bail-outs. The Conservative party's funding from banks, hedge funds and the rest of the financial sector has increased to at least 50% of all donations to their party's funds (13).

That explains why they cap benefits for people who desperately need the money but not bankers' bonuses for people who already have hundreds of times more than they could possibly need - and why the government hasn't made any serious attempt to close down the tax havens (just some window dressing) or re-regulate the financial sector. It also suggests that when the Conservatives say "we're all in it together" they really mean that they and their billionaire, banker and oil and arms company pals are all working together to rob everyone else.

Come the next general election this pair of public welfare recipient, dependent, hypocrites' days of living off the state and off of people who actually do work that benefits others, while contributing nothing themselves, will be coming to an abrupt end.

Sources

(1) = BBC News 25 Apr 2012 'UK economy in double-dip recession', , 'The UK economy has returned to recession, after shrinking by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012.A sharp fall in construction output was behind the surprise contraction, the Office for National Statistics said.A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction. The economy shrank by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011.'

(2) = ONS Press Release 16 April 2012 'Labour Market Statistics, April.', http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/april-2012/index.html , 'The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 2.65 million unemployed people, down 35,000 on the quarter. This is the first quarterly fall in unemployment since the three months to May 2011.

(3) = BBC News 04 May 2012 'High unemployment to do 'permanent damage' to UK', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17942814 ; 'The UK unemployment rate will rise from its current 8.3% to almost 9% by the end of this year, doing "permanent damage to the UK's productive capacity", a think tank has said.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said that the persistent weakness in the economy was "unprecedented".'

(4) = ONS Press Release 12 Apr 2012 'UK Trade, February 2012',
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/uktrade/uk-trade/february-2012/index.html , 'The deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods was £8.8 billion in February, compared with the deficit of £7.9 billion in January.'

(5) = Independent 27 Dec 2011 'Britain's poorest hit by £2.5bn 'stealth tax' , http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britains-poorest-hit-by-25bn-stealth-tax-6281832.html , 'Tax cuts for low and middle-income families in April will be dwarfed by hidden reductions in tax credits, according to a study for The Independent.

The analysis found that the £1bn of tax cuts in April will be outweighed by reductions of more than £2.5bn in the complex tax-credit scheme.'

(6) = Independent on Sunday 18 Mar 2012 'Working poor left out in the cold as benefit U-turn targets better-off ', http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/working-poor-left-out-in-the-cold-as-benefit-uturn-targets-betteroff-7576431.html

(7) = DirectGov Budget 2011 Tax Changes, http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/nl1/newsroom/budget/budget2011/dg_wp195609

(8) = Campaign Against the Arams Trade - Export Credits,
http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/ecgd.php

9) = guardian.co.uk 09 Jul 2011 '300 schools to be built with £2bn PFI scheme', http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/19/300-schools-built-private-finance-scheme

(10) = Guardian 09 Mar 2012 'Olympic Games risk going over budget as cost hits £11bn, say MPs', http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/09/olympic-games-budget-cost

(11) = www.parliament.uk 'Frequently Asked Questions: MPs ',
http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/members-faq-page2/

(12) = BBC News 18 Dec 2011 'Transport spending 'skewed towards London', http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16235349

(13) = Bureau of Investigative Journalism 08 Feb 2011 'Tory Party funding from City doubles under Cameron', http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/02/08/city-financing-of-the-conservative-party-doubles-under-cameron/

The Lib Dems knew they wouldn’t form a single party government – the excuses on tuition fees are empty

The Lib Dems leadership have shown great ingenuity but no credibility in coming up for reasons why they made scrapping tuition fees for students a key election campaign pledge, then broke it the moment there was a chance of getting into government – and instead backed tripling the level of tuition fees.

We know from leaked party documents that Treasury Minister Danny Alexander MP and Nick Clegg were already planning to drop the policy two months before they made it a key pledge in their election campaign.

Alexander as a Treasury minister went on to support privatisation of forests in England and Wales and then campaign  against it in Scotland. Alexander explained, as if talking to very small and very easily tricked children, that this was due to the “devolved nature of British politics”. Utter hypocrisy. Devolution does not allow the same politician to reverse their views as they cross the border.

So presumably the fact that the Lib Dems made a high profile campaign promise which they then broke by failing to make it a condition of joining any coalition government is due to the hypocritical, dishonest, nature of British politics? No, it’s not. There are some honest people in politics. Nick Clegg and some of his MPs are apparently not among them – with Norman Baker MP one of the honourable exceptions.

The latest excuse which every Lib Dem MP is making in TV interviews is that this was a pledge made if the Lib Dems formed a single party government. The identical reply given by each shows this ingenious reply comes from the party leader’s office. The trouble is it’s a lie – everyone, the Lib Dems most definitely included, knew the Lib Dems could not possibly form a single party government. So they were cynically lying to the electorate.

Some Lib Dem spokespeople squirm and wriggle like would-be Houdinis, talking of the positive aspects of the new Coalition policy. That completely misses the point. To put any policy in your manifesto and then reverse it on being elected is bad enough, but to do so with a policy which you made a high profile plank of your campaign is a betrayal of the people who voted for you, many of whom may have been persuaded to do so on that specific policy.

Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins has attempted to defend this betrayal on the grounds that parties break their manifesto pledges all the time. This does happen and is wrong – that hardly justifies it.

Jenkins argues that to criticise the Lib Dems on this issue is to make the supposedly “ludicrous” claim that there are two types of campaign pledges. There are many though. There are those in the small print of the manifesto ; there are the ones that are never even discussed or mentioned except by small parties and independents (like PFIs/PPPs) and there are the high profile policies that a party makes a key part of it’s manifesto. The tuition fees pledge was the third kind – and even as it was being made the party leaders were discussing binning it. After making that pledge it should have been a condition of joining any coalition.

Vince Cable has said that there was no promise to keep tuition fees. You could have fooled me. Clegg claimed during the election that he was utterly opposed to tuition fees and he and many of his MPS signed a Pledge to vote them down. A pledge, in case you’ve forgotten Vince, is a very public and solemn promise – an oath. You can still read it as one of the party’s key education policies on their website.

Nick Clegg’s credibility is gone and Cable’s is fading. Clegg is only still leader because his rivals and opponents in the party are waiting for him to absorb the backlash against his blatant disregard for his own voters before they make their move. Whether the Lib Dems survive as a serious political party will depend on how many Lib Dem MPs defy Nick Clegg by voting against tuition fees in parliament.

Nick Clegg's claim that the Coalition government's policies won't hurt the poorest most is hopelessly unrealistic

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has disputed the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ analysis, which found that government policies will hurt those on low incomes most (1).

He claims tax cuts will lead to economic growth which will create jobs, increasing the incomes of the poorest as they are employed. This is wishful thinking. Even the most enthusiastic advocate of this theory would have to admit that in the past such policies have never ended mass unemployment, which rose under both Reagan and Thatcher.

Even the government influenced Office for Budget Responsibility estimated over 600,000 public sector job losses by 2015, with 700,000 more made unemployed due to knock on unemployment in the private sector due to reduced demand (2) – (3).

Clegg is claiming that unemployment will fall under a government which is going to be sacking hundreds of thousands of public sector employees, both directly and by cutting funding to local councils.

This is combined with public sector pay freezes (effective pay cuts taking inflation into account) and benefit cuts, including changes in the way inflation is calculated for increases in benefits and pensions, so both will effectively rise more slowly than inflation and be cut in practice (4).

Only full employment and everyone working for life could avoid benefit cuts and unfair taxes hurting the poorest (including the poorest pensioners). Neither Clegg nor his coalition partners have guaranteed that.

There will be a lot more special pleading from Cameron, Osborne and Clegg on how the debt left to them by Labour makes these measures unavoidable if the debt's to be tackled.

This lacks all credibility while they continue to provide unlimited funding to grossly over-priced ‘Private Finance Initiatives’ and ‘Public Private Partnerships’, keep pretending Britain can afford it's own nuclear deterrent and keep subsidising privatised rail companies (as well as BAE arms exports through arms credit export guarantees) ,just like the previous government.

It would also be interesting to know how they can afford big cuts in corporation tax for all companies, including the biggest multinationals, if the public finances are in such a bad state that they're cutting benefits for the poorest (5).

How is it that the poorest are once again being made to pay most in cuts, while taxes for the biggest companies are being cut?

If the job cuts in the public sector do lead to knock on job losses in the private sector and another recession, the result will not have been to reduce the debt or increase tax revenues, but to increase it massively as tax revenues collapse in another recession. This is a scenario seen as a serious risk by most economists – and all the more likely because Angela Merkel’s government in Germany and Nicholas Sarkozy’s in France have adopted similar policies – and the rest of the EU is one of the largest markets for British exports.

 (1) = BBC News 25 Aug 2010 ‘Nick Clegg slams 'partial' IFS report on Budget’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11086137

(2) = BBC News 30 Jun 2010 ‘Forecast suggests 600,000 public sector jobs to go’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10457352

(3) = guardian.co.uk 29 Jun 2010 ‘Budget will cost 1.3m jobs – Treasury’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/budget-job-losses-unemployment-austerity

(4) = Observer 04 Jul 2010 ‘Public sector pensions lose £20,000 as calculations switched to lower index’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/04/public-sector-pensions

(5) = Guardian 22 Jun 2010 ‘Budget 2010: corporation tax slashed to 24p’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/22/budget-2010-corporation-tax-slashed-to-24p

A government excluding the Conservatives would only need to survive a few months to deliver PR for the next election

Nick Clegg is deciding whether to back a Conservative minority government or one of Labour and the smaller parties - he would get a better deal from the latter

The Conservative party are not offering the Lib Dems any solid pledge on a referendum on Proportional Representation. Cameron offering an all party commission on electoral reform does not specify who would appoint the members, nor give any guarantee that commission would recommend a referendum on PR, nor any guarantee that Cameron would accept it’s recommendations if it did

A minority government or coalition of all parties other than the Conservatives would represent around the same percentage of the electorate – at over 60%, that a Liberal-Conservative one would at 59.1%. The Conservatives got just 36.1% of the vote, merely the largest minority, so they have no unique right to form a government.

First past the post results in the votes of millions being binned unrepresented if they don't vote for the party that got the majority (or more often the largest minority) of the votes in that constituency. It also distorts how people vote as a result by encouraging them to vote for a party they see as bad in order to keep out one they see as worse. It results in 'safe' seats which result in big parties looking after the interests of big donors to party funds rather than those of voters.

P.R on the single transferrable vote or the additional member systems systems (the latter being the one used in Scottish Parliament elections) would allow people to vote positively for the candidate or party they agreed with most and would ensure that everyone's vote counted equally and was represented.

We need to scrap the backwards, undemocratic and archaic first past the post system now - and replace it with PR (STV) or PR (AMS).

A coalition or minority government of all parties except the Tories might well be unstable and find it difficult to agree on anything except a bill on PR and not making big public spending cuts until the economy recovers, but those two issues would be plenty – and they would disagree on them far less than Liberals and Conservatives would be likely to. Labour, with less seats, are also more likely to offer a solid pledge on a referendum on P.R than the Conservatives are.

Brown may need to pledge to step down as Labour leader within the next few months to get that deal. By doing so he would be remembered as a Prime Minister who put democracy and the good of both his party and the country before his own career. He might well even be made a Minister in the new government.

Clegg only needs a coalition or minority government which includes a pledge on a referendum on PR within months. It doesn’t need to survive long to do that – and then the next election would be under P.R. - with very different results, whether thye next election is months or years away.

If Clegg accepted a deal that does not deliver full PR (which excludes the 'Alternative Vote'), whether from the Conservatives or Labour, his party will split and most Lib Dem voters will abandon his party entirely.

Even if propping up the Conservatives or Labour lost the Lib Dems half the votes they got in the last election at the next one, they would still increase their number of seats under PR. Currently they have under 10% of the seats in parliament (57 seats) from 23% of the vote. Even if their vote halved in a future PR election (and it would be unlikely to as under PR more people would feel they could vote Lib Dem without letting Labour or the Conservatives in) they would get 12.5% of the seats, or 81 seats - a big increase.

Supporting any government without pledges on PR and delaying spending cuts would put the Lib Dems in the same position they were in in the Scottish Parliament in the past - as the junior partner in a coalition with little influence on most of government policy, but being held responsible for all government policy by the voters - and losing seats in future as a result.