Vince on Marr: It's grown up to talk to Labour

Vince Cable went on the Andrew Marr show this morning to talk about his new industrial strategy. He was also asked about the story in the Mail on Sunday which touted the idea that Zac Goldsmith would resign his Commons seat over the third runway at Heathrow. This, by the way, is an idea that was touted by Richard Morris over at A View from Ham Common on Friday. Well, actually, to be more accurate, he suggested a job swap. It was I in the comments who suggested that Boris wouldn't resign as Mayor but might contest the by-election.

Vince also talked about his new ministerial team, with particular praise for Jo Swinson, and on how he had killed off the Beecroft proposals on making it easier to hire and fire.

On reports that he's talking regularly to Labour, he replied that he was happy being part of Nick Clegg's team, but it was also grown up to have amicable relations with people from other parties.

Ed Balls was on as well, spewing his usual poison on Nick Clegg, a Deputy Prime Minister who has done far more liberal things in 2 years than Labour managed in 13. At the end, Cable and Balls found themselves sitting next to each other on Marr's sofa. Balls adopted an almost predatory, slightly creepy position, facing Vince. Our guy, on the other hand, was very neutrally facing the front. If Paul Waugh thinks this looks cosy, he maybe needs to re-evaluate his understanding of interpersonal relations.

Anyway here's my Storify thingy. There are some gaps - partly because there was an almighty crash from upstairs which scared the life out of me. My husband had fallen over and banged his head and is currently coping with me panicking inside and checking him every few minutes while exuding a Stepford-like calm. Poor man.

Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr this morning - Eurozone, human rights, immigration and vested interests

Another superb performance from Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr this morning. As befits someone who was there when the Euro was born, working for then EU Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittain, he showed that he really knows his stuff on the decisive reforms needed to sort the crisis out.

I did for a moment think that I'd have liked him to say that we wouldn't put up with any stupid Tory ideas to curb immigration, but his take on this was to try to calm the "breathless hysteria" of the press. Picking a fight with Theresa May on live tv maybe wasn't the best way to accomplish that. I have confidence that he'll allow common sense to prevail.

Other highlights were a very clear statement that he didn't think a free vote on equal civil marriage was necessary as religious people weren't being asked to sacrifice anything and an attack on vested interests in politics and how 2 years in Government has made him even more convinced of their pernicious influence.

He didn't say that much about the demo outside his house yesterday. He really just said that he and Miriam had decided that their kids should have as normal a life as possible and that's why they hadn't gone and moved into a Government flat when he became Deputy Prime Minister. For what it's worth, I think UK Uncut went too far. Politicians' houses should be off limits. Yes, they have a right to peaceful protest, but they should exercise it with some responsibility.

Anyway, here are my tweets from the interview, as is my custom, in a wee Storify thingy. Hope you find them useful.

Forget Paxman - which Liberal Democrat Voice editor featured at Leveson yesterday?

Everybody's talking about Jeremy Paxman's evidence at Leveson yesterday, where he described how Piers Morgan explained to him at a lunch how to hack somebody's phone and how people would be very stupid not to set a code. He wasn't telling us anything that wasn't already in the public domain, though. Piers Morgan talked about that himself in the first instalment of his own memoirs, The Insider, as far back as 2004.

The really interesting stuff from a Liberal Democrat Voice point of view happened when Andrew Marr gave his evidence. He was talking about the authority and credibility of the political blogosphere. Top left on page 83 if you don't want to read the whole thing.

"You look around and a lot of the most influential highly respected political commentators aren't newspaper journalists, actually, they are bloggers. I'm thinking of people like Tim Montgomery on Conservativehome or Mr Pack on the Liberal website."

Well, actually, Mr Marr, it's Dr Pack, but we'll let that one pass seeing as you were so nice.

It got me wondering what our Mark has said about Andrew Marr over the years.

In January this year, when Marr interviewed Nick Clegg, Mark commented t hat he must have been bidding for the highest number of topics in one interview.

Marr's comments yesterday were a big change from Autumn 2010 when he described bloggers as "inadequate, male, pimpled and single." Mark reminded him at the time that most bloggers are in fact female.  Now that Marr's  admiring the genre, he might want to diversify his reading list. He can start with Jennie. 

It appears to me that seeing as Mark has been cited as one of the most respected political commentators in the country, it wouldn't be a bad idea for him to head along to Leveson himself, especially as he has his own, liberal, perspective on how the media should be reformed post Leveson.

In the meantime, I guess it's chocolate milk shakes all round....

Metro finally gets the point of Liberal Democrat tax policy

The front page of yesterday's Metro made me laugh.

"The richest pay how much tax?" screamed their headline. "Multi millionaires hand over less than cleaners."

Their outrage at the relatively low rates of tax paid by the super rich continued for three columns on the front page and a continuation on page 5.

I guess it's good that they're finally getting the message. But, might we have heard their millionaire and cleaner example somewhere before?

Let's go back to January 2010 when I reported Nick Clegg's appearance on the Andrew Marr show.

Also on tax, he talked about taking 4 million people out of tax altogether by raising the tax threshold to £10,000 while closing down loopholes for the rich. He mentioned the case of the city banker who pays a lower rate of tax on his enormous capital gains than his cleaner pays on her wage, and, let's face it, it's probably the minimum wage.

That pre-election statement of intent from the Liberal Democrat leader has since, as we know, turned into 3 successive rises in the tax threshold from around £6500 to £9200 alongside measures to increase the tax paid by the rich, raising Capital Gains Tax and closing tax loopholes.

Did the Metro story mention this successful and popular Liberal Democrat policy? Not a word. Funny, that.

Clegg's e-mail signals start of fight back against Labour

Better watch out here - there's a sign of some joined up thinking from 'them indoors' in the Westminster Bubble.

Hot on the heels of Nick Clegg's mostly successful interview on Andrew Marr this morning an e-mail appears from him carrying on the themes. I'm glad to see the signs of a more aggressive tone with Labour. We have been putting up with too much of their hypocritical nonsense for too long.

A good sign - but we still need a decent, fast rebuttal system otherwise ales statements about us go unchallenged and become accepted fact by default.

Here it is for you to read:

Dear Caron,

Nearly two years ago, Liberal Democrats chose to do the right thing in the national interest at a time of crisis. We put tribalism aside and the good of the country first.

We didn’t come into politics to make cuts, but with the economy on the verge of collapse we knew we had to take the difficult decisions necessary to get the deficit under control and the country back on track.

And how did the Labour Party react?

They attacked us viciously. They refused to apologise or take responsibility for the mess they created. They opposed every cut and they indulged in cynical scaremongering.

In Sheffield, David Blunkett warned of ‘post-Soviet’ meltdown with people fending for themselves. It was the politics of fear and it was a disgrace.

But now, after nearly two years of opposing every cut, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls say they won’t reverse a single one. Yet they still say they oppose them.

Confused?

They have gone from being in the wrong place to being all over the place. From denial to disarray.

Many of our excellent councillors lost their seats last May because of the vicious attacks of their Labour opponents. We must not let them get away with it again.

Liberal Democrats approach this May’s elections with a track record of proud, progressive achievements in Government:

Lifting a million of the poorest workers out of tax and cutting taxes, not for the rich but for 23m basic rate taxpayers;
Making the well off pay their share by raising Capital Gains Tax, a new £10bn bank levy and keeping the 50p top rate of tax;
The most generous rise in the state pension for a generation;
A revolution in the way we support the children who need help the most when it matters the most, in the crucial early years and throughout their school lives;
More apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before;
And from this April, the Youth Contract, an ambitious £1bn programme to make sure every 18 to 24-year-old has the opportunity to earn or learn.
Clearing up Labour’s mess is not easy, but right. Let’s take the fight to them as May approaches.

You can see my interview on this morning's Andrew Marr show here.

Yours,



Nick Clegg MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

Clegg: "We must be bolder on fairer taxes but we're winning the argument"

Nick Clegg was interviewed by Andrew Marr this morning and, as has become my tradition, I've tweeted my way through it and preserved my commentary for you all to read.

He came across very well in the interview. You see, I first knew him a long time ago, and he talks to Marr in the same genuine and open way as he did with all of us way back then. He's being himself, which is something you don't often see with politicians at his level.

In my view, Marr didn't quiz him hard enough on welfare reform and particularly the cuts in benefits for the sick and disabled. It's not difficult to find evidence that these measures are a bad idea so a bit of laziness on Marr's part there. I'd have been interested to hear how Nick would have answered them.

The only criticism I'd really make about what he said was his use of that awful phrase "hard working families". It's quite a narrow phrase and doesn't take account of those people, who need looking after, who can't work for reasons of illness, caring responsibilities or there being no jobs.

However, Nick was pressed on taxes, fairness, the benefit cap, NHS reforms, bankers' bonuses and passed all those tests with flying colours. The thing about Nick is that he generally has a go at actually answering the question put to him. Often politicians use phrases like "let me be clear" as a deflection technique, but Nick actually means it.

There were three things that I felt were really important in what he said.

First was his clear passion to see greater fairness in the tax system. You can tell he's as fed up as we all are with the fact that bankers are still getting massive bonuses while the rest of us suffer, but he highlighted that this was a result of Labour's "irresponsible capitalism" giving them contractual entitlement to them.He talked about how the Coalition had done what it could to curb them. Asked by Marr on the Mansion Tax, he said that it was in our manifesto and if implemented would generate revenue to take taxes away from the poorest. He said that the Liberal Democrats were winning the argument on these issues.

Secondly, he said that the issue of how to deliver fairness in a time of austerity was a crucial issue for progressive parties everywhere. He pointed out Labour's failures in that regard - they, he said, had completely ducked the issue.

Finally, he was passionate about the Youth Contract, saying how he had pushed through government a far more ambitious plan to tackle youth unemployment than that offered by Labour. He clearly understood the effect of not getting a job, talking about the long term scarring of sitting at home filling in application after application and getting rejected.

The most amazing thing about the whole interview was that Spidey, who has not always been, shall we say, effusive in her praise for Nick, was talking about loving him forever.

Anyway, here are the tweets from the show.

Nick Clegg: I will fight for British jobs and interests after "bad for Britain" summit

For the second Sunday in a row, I got up to see Nick Clegg on the Andrew Marr Show.

I think Liberal Democrats have been in shock this weekend, trying to make sense of the shenanigans of the Brussels summit which have left us, at least temporarily, isolated in Europe.

On Friday, I just threw myself into frenzied spate of cleaning, tackling both behind the sofa and the rabbit hutch on the same day, simply as displacement activity so I didn't have to think of the ramifications of it all because I was so upset by it.

By yesterday, every time I thought of David Cameron, I couldn't get rid of the thought of him in his jammies singing "All by myself" like Bridget Jones does. And, frankly, Bridget doesn't quite think that being all by herself is quite how she wants to spend her life.

I didn't expect Nick to come out with all guns blazing and call Cameron for everything. It's just not his way. His focus will have been on how to retrieve the situation - and if he wants Cameron to listen to him, he has to moderate his language. I tweeted my way through the live broadcast, and the results are below, but the main points are:

• what happened on Friday is bad for Britain
• what David Cameron was asking for was modest and reasonable
• Britain's standing in the world depends on us being seen as a leader within the EU
• there is no case for a referendum on Europe
• we must take opportunities to exert UK influence in coming months
• "I will fight for UK long term interests so jobs and growth not threatened"

I completely stuffed up the reporting of one quote from him, so I'll do it properly here. While he showed understanding for David Cameron's position, "I'm not under the same constraints from my parliamentary party as he is," he had a right go a the Eurosceptics:

 Eurosceptics are spectacularly misguided. Nothing bulldog about Britain hovering in mid Atlantic, isolated and not taken seriously

I think Nick got the tone absolutely right this morning - calm, reasonable, and with an attitude of "let's get this sorted".  If I had any criticism at all, I think he needs to counter the bulldog bile with some more really practical, everyday examples of how our daily life could be affected if we don't sort this out.

Nick's credentials at international negotiation are second to none. He's negotiated with China on behalf of the EU and he knows Europe backwards. We saw during the leaders' debates that Cameron doesn't perform well in a high pressure situation when he's trying to put his case and Thursday night was a spectacularly bad day for him. If Cameron has any sense at all, he'll listen to Nick's advice on how to fix this. 

It's more important than ever that the Coalition stays together, otherwise the right wing Tory eurosceptics will win and xenophobia and isolation will become the norm for this country.

Anyway, here are my tweets from Nick's appearance on Marr. I'll put up the iPlayer link when it's available.

Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr - the tweets

Not much time this morning - just thought I'd do a quick summary of Nick Clegg's appearance on Andrew Marr this morning.

Great to see him talk about extension of pre-school education to 2 year olds in England and confirm that child tax credits will be going up by the rate of inflation.

He needs to watch his language on poverty, though - so much more needs to be done and he needs to be sure that he acknowledges that rather than suggest that it's on the way to being sorted. Education for two year olds is great - but they need to be fed, warm and in decent housing and we haven't even scratched the surface on that.

Here's a quick selection of tweets from me and other Lib Dems as he spoke.

Nick Clegg comes out fighting on Andrew Marr - but he must not have final say on Health Reform Bill

I am so tired today. I had a rare bout of Insomnia last night. Normally nothing keeps me from my sleep, but for some reason I woke up at half past midnight and didn't get back to sleep till 4. That might have been ok if I hadn't had to get up at 6:30 to see Anna off to her choir concert - of which more later.

At least I was awake to watch Andrew Marr. It was good to see Nick Clegg come out fighting after a pretty miserable weekend. He seems to have got the message that he needs to be more robust about accentuating the differences between us and the Tories. Somebody observed to me over the weekend that actually it might be his experience in Europe which keeps him quiet. Apparently in the EU, negotiations are done behind closed doors and there aren't any public disagreements. This coalition is not the EU, and it's not a negotiation between nations.  It is essential to show the differences between the two very different parties from two very different traditions who make up our current government. It's possible to do that in a civilised way. What's the problem with saying, when Cameron makes deeply offensive comments about people on Incapacity Benefit, that Liberal Democrats don't see it quite that way and give our reasons why in a calm manner?

Nick said that the reasons we went into coalition a year ago with the Tories still stood. There was an economic crisis to deal with and the country needed a Government willing to step up and sort it out. He said that there was nothing progressive about borrowing £400 million a day, putting taxpayers' money into the hands of bond traders when it should be going into public services.

He also emphasised that for every £8 the coalition cuts, Labour would have cut £7.

He talked about what the Government is achieving in terms of becoming the greenest government ever and one of the most child friendly in Europe and at the same time delivering tax cuts for the lowest paid. We need to find many more examples. The difficulty we have is that it's a bit of a hard sell to tell people that they'd be in more pain, paying £200 more in income tax, and 6p more for every litre of petrol, when they are already feeling very tightly squeezed. One major thing Nick didn't mention was that we've kicked the Tories' ridiculous idea of cutting Housing Benefit by 10% for people who have been out of work for a year. That's a major concession for some of the people who really need it most.

The discussion then turned to the Health Bill. This is where Nick and I are going to slightly part company. I'm very happy that there are going to be "substantial, significant changes" to the Health Reform Bill. That no bill was better than a bad bill. He went on to say, and here's the rub, that he would not ask any peer or MP to vote for it if he thought it undermined the NHS. As far as I can see, it's not for Nick to decide alone. We have very clear democratic processes in this party and I would expect that the changes would have to comply with the will of the Conference, which overwhelmingly passed this motion.

Conference believes that the NHS is an integral part of a liberal society, reflecting the social solidarity of shared access to collective healthcare, and a shared responsibility to use resources effectively to deliver better health.
Conference welcomes our Coalition Government’s commitment to the founding principles of the NHS: available to all, free at the point of use, and based on need, not the ability to pay.
Conference welcomes much of the vision for the NHS set out in the Government’s White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS which commits the Government to an NHS that:
i) Is genuinely centred on patients and carers.
ii) Achieves quality and outcomes that are among the best in the world.
iii) Refuses to tolerate unsafe and substandard care.
iv) Puts clinicians in the driving seat and sets hospitals and providers free to innovate, with stronger incentives to adopt best practice.
v) Is more transparent, with clearer accountabilities for quality and results.
vi) Is more efficient and dynamic, with a radically smaller national, regional and local bureaucracy.
vii) Gives citizens a greater say in how the NHS is run.
Conference particularly welcomes the proposals to introduce real democratic legitimacy and local accountability into the NHS for the first time in almost forty years by:
a) Extending the powers of local authorities to enable effective scrutiny of any provider of any taxpayer funded health services.
b) Giving local authorities the role of leading on improving the strategic coordination of commissioning across the NHS, social care, and related childrens’ and public health services through councillor led Health and Wellbeing Boards.
c) Creating Health Watch to act as a local consumer champion for patients and to ensure that local patients are heard on a national level.
d) Returning public health duty to local government by ensuring that the majority of public health services will now be commissioned by Local Authorities from their ring-fenced public health budget.
Conference recognises however that all of the above policies and aspirations can be achieved without adopting the damaging and unjustified market-based approach that is proposed.
Conference regrets that some of the proposed reforms have never been Liberal Democrat policy, did not feature in our manifesto or in the agreed Coalition Programme, which instead called for an end to large-scale top-down reorganisations.
Conference therefore calls on Liberal Democrats in Parliament to amend the Health Bill to provide for:
I) More democratically accountable commissioning.
II) A much greater degree of co-terminously between local authorities and commissioning areas.
III) No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia.
IV) The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers ‘compete’ on quality of care.
V) New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of ‘cherry picking’ which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met.
VI) NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies.
VII) The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of interests.
VIII) An NHS, responsive to patients’ needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and which promotes quality and equity not the market.
Conferences calls:
1. On the Government to uphold the NHS Constitution and publish an audit of how well organisations are living by its letter and spirit.
2. On Liberal Democrats in local government to establish local Health and Wellbeing Boards and make progress developing the new collaborative ways of working necessary to provide joined up services that are personalised and local.
3. The government to seize fully the opportunity to reverse the scandalous lack of accountability of publicly-funded local health services which has grown up under decades of Conservative and Labour governments, by:
a) Ensuring full scrutiny, including the power to require attendance, by elected local authorities of all organisations in the local health economy funded by public money, including Foundation Trusts and any external support for commissioning consortia; ensuring that all such organisations are subject to Freedom of Information requirements.
b) Ensuring Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) are a strong voice for accountable local people in setting the strategic direction for and co-ordinating provision of health and social care services locally by containing substantial representation from elected local councillors; and by requiring GP Commissioning Boards to construct their Annual Plans in conjunction with the HWBs; to monitor their implementation at meetings with the HWBs not less than once each quarter; and to review the implementation of the Annual Plan with the HWBs at the end of the year prior to the construction of the Annual Plan for the forthcoming year.
c) Ensuring commissioning of health services has some degree of accountability by requiring about half of the members of the board of commissioning consortia, alongside GPs, to be local councillors appointed as non-executive directors.
d) Offering additional freedoms only to Foundation Trusts that successfully engage substantial proportions of their local populations as active members.

That, I would suggest, is our litmus test, not just Nick's opinion, and I expect our Parliamentary Parties and Federal Policy Committee to robustly involve themselves in that judgement.

There was some good stuff in there and an indication that Nick gets what needs to be done. Marr asked him if he might accept a Tory peerage or if he'd join the Tories. The look on his face was a picture - I knew he never, ever would because liberalism is a good part of his DNA, but his answer to this very stupid question was direct:

"I am not a Conservative, never have been, never will be, and I will be carried out in my coffin as a card carrying Liberal Democrat."

I never doubted that for a second. Conservatives don't have helping the poorest and most vulnerable people on their radar, yet Nick's very first major speech as leader was about helping people with mental health problems and he made that happen in Government.  He needs to get out of the Westminster Bubble and out on the stump again.

Vince Cable on Andrew Marr yesterday - on bankers, bonuses and half full glasses

Business Secretary Vince Cable appeared on Andrew Marr's show yesterday for the first time since his wee spot of bother before Christmas. Unfortunately, Marr stuck completely to politics and didn't ask him about his spin round the dance floor with Erin Boag in the Strictly Christmas special, but Vince did have lots to say about the banks and the economy.

Vince was quick to say that this week's agreement with banks is "by no means a finished article" but was "helpful in getting the banks, including the private banks who are not owned by the state to make commitments in terms of lending to small and medium sized companies." Marr pushed him on the lending part of the agreement which he described as "pretty weak". Cable said that it was a two sided arrangement - banks have agreed to make more money available to SMEs and the Government is going to step back from threatening the banks with higher taxes." However, he did say that if the banks didn't play ball, then the Government would look at its relationship with them again. I would like to say I felt sure about this. If it were only Vince making the decision, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. I said the other day that I didn't think a 6% increase was enough to see the growth we actually need.

He did talk about the major changes to come in terms of "fundamental surgery" on the structure of the industry - getting more competition and separating off the retail and investment elements of the banking system.

On Matthew Oakeshott, described by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England as "widely seen as Vince Cable's representative on earth" all he would say that was that in "friendly discussions" with him, he'd suggested that the glass was "more half full than half empty" pointing to the fact that most of the major developments with the banks had taken place outside the Merlin agreement, citing the taxes and disclosure legislation on top earners.

Marr challenged him that he was not as tough on the banks as he used to be. Vince replied:

"I remain forthright - these are extraordinarily large bonuses which I think most people cannot understand. Let's be clear why we would object to enormous salaries in banking and not football. What is different is that banks are underwritten by the state, they have a state guarantee and that's why the enormous payments are so offensive. And in order to deal with that guarantee, and banks being too big to fail, we have to look at their structure and that's why the Banking Commission is crucial."

Marr pushed him about separating the casino banks from the everyday life banks and Vince acknowledged that this was part of the solution but that there also had to be more competition to give customers a better deal, for example small businesses paying such enormous margins.

Marr asked him if we'd notice the difference. Vince outlined 3 aims that he wanted to see: "banks more competitive, safer and not making large excess profits which fuel the bonus culture"

Asked about whether departing Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's assets would be frozen as Switzerland had done, Vince said that he'd be worried if the banks had been involved in anything improper. He did say that one thing the Government had cracked down was "stopping the banks engaging in large scale tax avoidance on behalf of their corporate clients".

He said he didn't agree with the 91 Liberal Democrat councillors who had written to the Times to complain about the pace of the cuts. Vince said they did have a point about the need to reform local government finance to make it more genuinely local.  A bit of an evasive answer, emphasising a small part of the letter

He also talked about launching major initiatives in terms of trade and apprenticeship to try and secure the economic growth we need.

All in all, Vince was in good form - the language may be more diplomatic than it once was, but the intent to deal with the banks is as strong as it was in opposition and he seems determined to see it through.

You can watch the interview in full here. 

Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr - gorging bankers, Ed's dinosaurs, Coulson, VAT and disproving prophets of doom

I can't imagine politicians actually like spending 25 minutes being grilled by Andrew Marr while the rest of us are in our pjs on our sofas sipping Earl Grey, but they do make the Sunday mornings of political junkies. This morning it was the turn of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. My thoughts went back to almost exactly a year go when I wrote up his first Marr interview of 2010. How had Government changed him?

Well, I think he looks a bit tireder, and a bit older, maybe, but he's still the same open, plain speaking, genuine guy I've always known. This is what I said about him last year:

Nick on the other hand comes across like he's having a genuine conversation. He doesn't just trot out a lot of stock phrases. He generally has a go at answering the question he's been asked, but he still gets in the things he wants to tell people.

Today's interview was testing and wide ranging. I did have a bit of a wry chuckle to myself, where what he said now had a different tone to what he might have said this time last year, most notably on Andy Coulson. I also felt that there was at least one occasion when Andrew Marr missed a chance to get his wooden spoon out and stir things up a bit.

So, split up into bite sized chunks for you, here are the highlights:

On going from being adored to reviled in a few short months


You don't go into Government with your eyes closed, particularly when y ou're facing such a terrible economic situation. You don't go into politics thinking you are going to be exempt from villification. What I ask of people is that they look at the reality of what we're doing, not the myth of what we're alleged to be doing.


On Tuition Fees


It's a bit counter intuitive. What this will mean is that the amount universities can charge will go up, but what people pay will go down.


It will be easier for a bright child from a poor background to go to university than it would have been under Labour.


We will make millionaires pay over the odds to subsidise.


Asked about future policy:

I would love to find the money t make university fees free for everyone. 


The caveat was that in the current situation, when there was so little money, they'd have had to take money out of schools, or health or pensions. He also said that he found it unacceptable to cap student numbers. I'm sure I remember Vince Cable and other Liberal Democrats questioning whether having such a high proportion of people going to university was sustainable, so it'll be interesting to see how the party feels about that.

Marr pressed him on breaking the NUS pledge

That is our policy, but both the Tories and Labour are wedded to the fees system. Fees would have gone up if we were in coalition with Labour. We were isolated on this issue.


We had to be realistic. We didn't win the election outright. We came third. We had to compromise.


I think that he could have made a reasonable answer better by pointing out that even NUS no longer believe in their pledge, taking on the idea of a graduate tax which would have been more regressive than the system that the Coalition had introduced and more expensive to those on low incomes.

On the Banks


There are issues round bonuses and lending and we're talking to the banks about that but in the bigger scheme of things we need to insulate the British economy.


He talked about the various models of a restructured banking system in which ordinary people's savings were in one highly regulated sector, separate from risky investment banks. He said that he liked the idea of adopting that sort of model and that's what the Commission the Government had set up will be looking at.

On Ed Balls


Well, there's no sign of timidity in the Coalition camp at the appointment of Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor. It's clear that no opportunity will be lost to remind people of his culpability in the current mess:

Labour never owned up to their responsibility. Ed Balls as Minister for the City was lauding light touch regulation. We're entitled to ask questions over Labour's record. Who let the housing market become like a casino? Who let bankers gorge themselves on massive bonuses?


Perfectly reasonable questions in my view.

VAT


Nick talked that we could debate whether the VAT increase was regressive. I don't actually agree with that - we don't like the idea of raising VAT, we argued against it. There's no point arguing that it's not going to have more affect on the living standards of those on lower income than on the richest.

He did say, though that I don't like VAT, but how else could we have raised £13 billion a year


He also touched on how Labour's ideas (or at least Alistair Darling's, who knows what they'll say now) on the deficit was to eliminate it in 7 years, while coalition's wasn't so different. Of course Alistair Darling's plan is what they would have implemented n Government. Now they are in opposition, they can say anything they like.

On Ed "unleashing his dinosaurs"


Marr asked why Nick had "spatchcocked" the reduction in number of MPs and equalisation of constituencies onto the AV referendum.

Nick said that it was right that people should have their say on a fairer voting system and that everyone's vote should have the same value - which has been the principle of political reformers down the ages.

He observed how Ed Miliband talked on this programme last week about new politics but the next day he let his dinosaurs in the House of Lords off the leash to block reforms which make the political system fairer and which govern how MPs are elected.


Control Orders


What would happen would be exactly in line with what I'd always said about restoring the balance between liberty and security. Thee is a need to protect the public from people who want to commit terrorist acts and to make sure that those criminals are dealt with by the courts and justice system.


NHS Reforms


Nick talked about how it was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto to scrap strategic health authorities and that we wanted people who knew the patients best (GPs) to direct the funds. We campaigned on more local accountability. Bureaucracy answers to Secretary of State at the moment and decisions should be based on patient need.


This area is one where Andrew Marr could have got his wooden spoon out. There is more in the proposed reforms than there is in the coalition agreement (although, having had a good look at it, not as much as I at first thought). Marr  might have pointed out to Nick that some of our MPs had been critical of the proposed reforms and asked if they would be bound to vote for things which weren't in the Coalition Agreement.

On Coalition Government


In a coalition government, nobody should be surprised that two separate parties have different and separate ideas and identities. The Coalition isn't a pact, it isn't a merger and we're not joined at the hip. Of course we will stand as opposing candidates in all seats.


We'll be setting out separate and different visions for the future but drawing on our shared record, and will speak in more temperate, civilised tones.


Well, that might be a good thing, but we had better still rip Tory policies we don't agree with to shreds. I certainly will if nobody else does.

Andy Coulson


Part of that temperate tone was apparent when Nick talked about Andy Coulson. It was certainly different to the tone Chris Huhne struck on Andy Coulson a couple of years ago. 

As I write, Chris Huhne is on the Politics Show talking about the issue and welcoming the ongoing police investigation into this. He says that it is implausible that it was limited to one journalist at the News of the World and basically re-iterated what he said 2 years ago in slightly more moderate terms. He also says that he had a good relationship with Andy Coulson in No 10 and had no reason to doubt his word that he didn't know what was going on at the News of the World.

What Nick said was that David Cameron has said that he thought it was right to give Andy Coulson a second chance. [Coulson] said he had no knowledge of phone hacking and I have no reason to disbelieve him.


There's no doubt that if we'd been in opposition now, we'd have been making the same sort of hay that Ed Miliband is making over Coulson's resignation. Everyone who's ever been in any relationship knows, though, that there are times you just have to hold back, to keep things on an even keel. I wouldn't have employed Andy Coulson, but if I were in the Government, I think I'd recognise that picking a fight with Cameron on this isn't going to help anyone. The future or past of Andy Coulson is not going to affect the wellbeing of one single person in this country. Ok, maybe Coulson himself, but I'm not really bothered about him. When we  pick fights with the Tories, they need to be on issues and values. I think that Nick and Chris managed to get the balance right in their comments today. I'm surprised Marr didn't throw Chris's comments on Coulson in Nick's face, though. He could have been a lot more robust with him.

Are the Lib Dems finished?


If you look at the Liberal Democrat manifesto, it had 4 key pledges on the front - fair taxes (and we're taking 900,000 people out of income tax altogether), cleaning up politics, a fair start for every child and rebalancing the economy, we are delivering on all of these. 


People always try to write off the Liberal Democrats. They did it every week in opposition and they're doing it every day now we're in Government. We disproved them at the election, at Oldham East and Saddleworth and we will do so in the future.


I'd like to have seen him be a lot more robust on this. Not on the prophets of doom stuff, but on what we've brought to the Coalition that the Tories would never have done in a million years. A lot of it's obvious, but he still needs to say it. We've held them back on many things. He could also have cited that the very rich will now have to pay more Capital Gains Tax - I think that's an important point to make, and the Tories would never have done that.

All in all, a good, positive and competent performance from Nick. I'd like to see him punchier on certain things, but everything he said was very reasonable.

Clegg on Marr: Setting out the Liberal Agenda

I didn't watch Nick Clegg's interview on Andrew Marr this morning live. I couldn't face getting out of my nice warm bed. Not for the first time, I cursed myself for sticking so rigidly to my no tv in the bedrooms rule. Anyway, it was being captured on the Infernal Wickedness of Sky Plus. I wasn't however, able to resist a peak at Twitter where I found some Tories pulling him apart on what he was saying on immigration. I reckoned that had to be a good sign and when I watched it back, I was proved right.

Nick deftly blew all the nonsense you hear from Tories out of the water, sensibly outlining how we need to know who comes into the country and who leaves it, reminding us that it was the Tories who abolished the exit checks. He talked about his visit to the Borders over the weekend where he was told that businesses didn't have enough skille workers locally and where they needed people to come in and do the jobs. He said that a points system based on regional need, as works in other countries such as Australia could help us to manage immigration for everyone's benefit.

He was also very clear that anyone fleeing persecution, violence, rape or torture would be treate fairly if the Lib Dems were in power and, of course, this would include people who could be killed for being gay in their home country.

I don't think I've ever heard Brown or Cameron talk about the fact that more British people leave the country to live and work abroad than people come here from other countries. Nick is worried that if we "pull up the drawbridge" by following Cameron's proposals it'll have a negative impact on emigration as well as being ineffective anyway.

He also laid into David Cameron's ridiculous ideas to give tax breaks to married couples. He explained very clearly how passionately he believed that "happy families who stayed together to love, nurture and support their children" were a good thing. The question of how we get there is not to dole out a tax bribe for holding a marriage certificate. He used the example of a woman deserte by a philandering husband who then went on to another marriage, to get another tax break while she's left with a tax hike as well as the stress of a broken marriage. He could also have used the example of someone being widowed. I thought he managed to effectively deal with the trap the Tories thoguht they'd set him by showing his commitment to family life and showing up the idiocy and unfairness of the IDS thinktank ideas.

Also on tax, he talked about taking 4 million people out of tax altogether by raising the tax threshold to £10,000 while closing down loopholes for the rich. He mentioned the case of the city banker who pays a lower rate of tax on his enormous capital gains than his cleaner pays on her wage, and, let's face it, it's probably the minimum wage.

Marr brought up the experience of tv presenter and singer Myeleene Klass who was told off by Police for waving a knife at two would-be intruders. I felt his response was liberal, sensible and clear. He said that he didn't see a case for a change in the law when the current system gave judges and courts discretion to look at each case individually. My own view is that it's perfectly reasonable for a young woman, when confronted with two men who are threatening who knows what level of harm to her and her baby, to wave whatever she likes at them. If she had chased them down the street and stabbed them, that would have been different. I don't agree with her that the law needs to be changed - but based on her experience and what the Police said to her, I see why she thinks that.

Marr then tried to do the ritual that all Lib Dem leaders get - trying to get a list of what our bargaining chips would be in the event of a hung Parliament. I'm sure Nick must be sick to death of that question by now, but he didn't show it. He explained very clearly what our principles would be in that situation - firstly, that the people were in charge and not politicians and secondly that fairness would be at the heart of our actions. When asked if PR was a prerequisite, he replied that it was crucial to the change the country needed. He said that it was "implausible that the Liberal Democrats would take any position of power without radical political reform."

If I had to pick him up on anything, it would be that I'd have liked him to be more positive about the things like free personal care, saying that of course we want to be in a position to deliver it but the money just isn't there to do it during the next Parliament.

All in all, I think it was a good performance. When Gordon Brown is being interviewed, he's so defensive and closed, even when he's trying to be sincere. It's actually painful to watch. When David Cameron is being interviewed, I just feel he's just trying out slick communication techniques he's learned from a specialist and comes across as airbrushed as his poster. Nick on the other hand comes across like he's having a genuine conversation. He doesn't just trot out a lot of stock phrases. He generally has a go at answering the question he's been asked, but he still gets in the things he wants to tell people.

A Lib Dem friend of mine and I were chatting away the other day about Nick in the wake of his comments about Gina Ford and his unequivocal support for LGBT rights. We were talking about what a joy it was to have a leader who was as open and willing to take a stand as Nick in an environment where politicians have tried to be as bland as can be so as to avoid offending people. In fact, there's a thread on my Facebook where I'd posted the Gina Ford article and someone had said that it was a bit strange that he'd taken a position on someone who could be so polarising, cos he'd no doubt offend Gina's fans. A friend of mine who isn't party political at all said that that was one of his assets.

I don't want Nick getting the idea that he's perfect or infallible, because he isn't, and he is bound to do something that seriously annoys me (which you will hear about) but by being himself, he's doing a great job of getting the liberal message out there.