If you tell a big one, tell a big one!

One lie leads to another!

Choose your adage, and run with it. At two separate points, I thought of these sayings this weekend. The first time was when Nick Clegg was interviewed by Sophie Raworth about various issues, including the economy. Clegg wasted no time in criticising the previous Labour administration in the running of the economy. The second time was when I finally read the article in the Independent about David Laws writing the next Liberal Democrat manifesto of 2015.

David Laws and Nick Clegg believe that the the unique selling proposition (USP) of the Liberal Democrats is “a  fair society and a strong economy”.

Let us take first the economy because of the famous saying, “It’s the economy stupid”. It is a fact that if you look at the actual figures Labour spending prior to the economy was in fact comparable to Ken Clarke and Norman Lamont. George Osborne went on record to say that he would match at least the spending plans of Labour, and possibly exceed them, in the last government. There was a £1tn bailout in the UK economy which all experts concede was due to the emergency measure of recapitalising the bank.

The argument for doing this massive bailout was to stop the banking system imploding. The argument runs something like follows: all banks are heavily in debt (leveraged), and therefore when one bank can’t repay its debts, the bank to which it owes its debts can’t then repay its debts, and so you then have a domino effect. Northern Rock and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a failure of the international securitised mortgages, saw the beginning of this dangerous situation. George Osborne puts a lot of store on credit ratings, ignoring the fact that Lehman Brothers had the top rating the second before it went bust.

Also, the Liberal Democrats’ economic policy has shared ownership with the Conservatives’ economic policy. They state clearly that their raison d’être of being in a Coalition is to reduce the deficit, even though the deficit has been going up due to falling tax receipts and increased levels of welfare payments. This policy, which has been criticised now by Ed Balls and the Labour Party, the head of Goldman Sachs, Prof. Stiglitz and Blanchflower, Lord Skidelsky and the trade unions, amongst others, has spectacularly failed, and the Liberal Democrats should be reminded at all opportunities about the mess they created following May 2010. They had inherited economy which was in a fragile recovery, squandered it, and for them to claim they aspire for a ‘strong economy’ is a disgusting laughable claim.

For the Liberal Democrats to have an ounce of credibility in the “damage that Labour did to the economy” argument, they must answer that one. True libertarians, it is argued, might have followed an argument akin to “creative destruction”, and allowed the banks to fail as per Iceland, a country which George Osborne praised before the Iceland economy went bust. It is argued by true libertarians that the best way to ‘cure’ the system overall is to allow the failing banks to fail, otherwise you unnecessarily give the wrong people money, and you’re in effect rewarding failure.

The Liberal Democrats are entirely silent on this matter.

The second part of the USP is no less fraudulent. The enactment of the Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act has seen law centres going out of business on the high street. Such law firms are essential for basic access-to-justice across a range of social welfare issues, not least disability and other welfare benefits, unfair dismissals and other employment disputes, immigration and housing matters, for example. In another Act, which only obtained Royal Assent because of the Liberal Democrats, the massive increase in the rôle of the private sector in running outsourced services for the NHS has become law, already leading to the marketisation and fragmentation of services offered by the NHS. This is a massive attack on the notion that the NHS is comprehensive, and even has threatened some services being “free-at-the-point-of-use”.

Disabled citizens do not feel that the LibDems have created a “fair society”.  The Welfare Reform Act was steamroller-ed through Parliament and the House of Lords by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The appeals over people deemed ‘fit-to-work’ continue, as do the stories of inappropriate decisions, successful appeals, and, tragically, suicides.

The LibDems’ USP is, apparently, “a fair society and a strong economy”. Their party name is a misnomer, but the USP is clearly fraudulent. It is sick, disgusting, and needs to be scrutinised carefully in the next election campaign.