Liberal democrats

A story that has escaped largely unnoticed this weekend is the creation of the Liberal Democrat party's sinisterly named ‘anti-Tory attack unit’. Sam Coates has the details in the Times: ‘Nick Clegg has created an anti-Tory attack unit which will focus Liberal Democrat firepower on exposing George Osborne’s “complete inexperience”. In an interview with The Times, Chris Huhne said that specialist staff will be seconded to the new group, which he will chair and will include all the party’s most effective attack dogs, including Norman Baker, Norman Lamb and Lord Oakeshott. Mr Huhne, the party’s home affairs spokesman, will lead the party’s attack at their conference, which begins today in Bournemouth.

For all his celebrity, Vince Cable is not exactly an economic genius - as those who have read his book, The Storm,  will know all to well (Specator review here). But he is seldom tested on this point, as he encounters broadcasters whose line of questioning is normally "tell us, Sage of Twickenham, what is happening." For those who don't regard him as the new Oracle and have wanted  see him put through his paces, Andrew Neil - Cable's former student - gives his old master a grilling on the BBC News Channel. In the interview, Cable gets steadily more irritated (and rumbled) and admits to having flip-flopped. The Cable phenomenon illustrates the gulf between economic and political reporting. As a business hack to went into politics, the contrast has always struck me.

So are Vince Cable's public spending cuts his own, or are they Lib Dem policy?  In his Straight Talk interview with the Lib Dem treasury spokesman this weekend, Andrew Neil tries to get to the bottom of it all.  The result?  Well, according to Cable, Nick Clegg "approved" his pamphlet for the think tank Reform, and some of its contents could find their way into the party's manifesto: "A lot of it is already Lib Dem policy, a lot of it already is, the rest of it will have to be considered and we’ll go into an election with a manifesto, we have a due process.  Maybe because of who I am a lot of it will be there, but some of it may not be, it has to be agreed with my colleagues of course.

Nick Clegg joins the ‘progressive’ debate with a double of salvo in The Times and in a pamphlet, titled ‘The liberal moment’, published by Demos. The philosophically anachronistic Labour party is his target. He writes: ‘The contrast between Labour and liberals is starkest in their different approaches to power. While Labour hoards at the centre, liberals believe that power must be dispersed away from government - downwards to individuals and communities, and upwards to the international institutions needed to tackle our collective problems. State-centered, top-down solutions are wholly out of step with the demands of our age.

So what has David Cameron achieved with his speech on "cutting the cost of politics" yesterday?  Quite a lot, judging by this morning's papers.  The coverage it receives ranges from wholehearted scepticism in the Guardian to front-page celebration in the Daily Mail, but - more importantly, from a Tory perspective - it steals the thunder from Alistair Darling's public spending speech.  The Chancellor's innuendo about "nasty Tory cuts" is much less resonant when juxtaposed against the Tory leader calling for cuts in MPs' perks, whether those cuts are regarded as populist or not. What's more, Cameron has drawn quotes from Labour and the Lib Dems that may look a little silly in time.

Nick Clegg’s statement today on Afghanistan strongly suggests to me that by the time of the next election the Lib Dems will be for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clegg told the BBC that: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t do it properly we shouldn’t do it at all. I don’t think we are there yet,” he said. Clegg’s use of the word yet seems to be a definite hint that he is moving towards advocating withdrawal. In crude political terms, this would make a lot of sense for the Lib Dems. It would give them a distinctive policy and allow them to tap into public unease about the war.

As the Megrahi case grows more serious by the day, one thing should be cheering up those in the Brown bunker: Sky’s plan to host a debate among the party leaders. Now, Brown might be the only party leader yet to have agreed to the debate but he is the one with the most to gain from it. If Brown is to have any hope of stopping David Cameron from winning the next election outright, he needs a game changing moment—and a debate might just produce one. The first televised leaders’ debate will be a hugely hyped event. One has to imagine that it would draw a huge TV audience and a ton of media coverage. It would provide the clunking fist with the perfect platform to land a blow on David Cameron.

If further proof were needed that the public’s attitude to public spending has changed it comes in the latest Guardian / ICM poll. It finds that 64 percent of voters think that spending should be being reduced now as opposed to 28 percent who want it increased: the electorate is on the other side of Brown’s favourite dividing line. Even among Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters, a majority favour cuts. Amongst those who favour cuts, the Tories have a significant advantage. 46 percent of those who support cuts think Labour would cut too little with 21 percent saying it would cut too much. With the Tories, 30 percent worry they would cut too much and 22 percent that they would not cut enough.

The support for Britain's involvement in Afghanistan is, for the first time, showing major signs of fraying. Nick Clegg broke ranks with the other party leaders last week, and this weekend the total number of British deaths went beyond the number of soldiers killed in Iraq. Understandably, the Sunday papers are filled with stories about the lack of troops and kit. The Observer reports that an emergency review is taking place in the MoD to see if more soldiers need to be sent out. So what to make of it all? First of all, it is clear that there were too few troops and civilians deployed to start off. I have given my take on what went wrong initially in Helmand to the Foreign Affairs Committee, as have some of the protagonists like Ed Butler.

Though Nick Clegg has greater pre-existing international experience than either David Cameron or Gordon Brown (having worked in Brussels), he cannot help but see international affairs through a narrow political lens. Last year it was Israel's targetting of Hamas, now it is Nato's Afghan mission. Clegg wants the British troop contribution to ISAF either massively expanded or for the boys to come home. Simple enough. But it is also a sign that the Lib Dems, despite having such foreign policy luminaries like Ming Campbell on their benches, lack depth. It would be great for the number of British troop in Helmand to be expanded. But with almost 9000 troops already deployed, any uplift is likely to be limited.

The thing that jumps out from Nick Clegg's speech on families today is how aggressively - if, ultimately, unconvincingly - it sets about attacking the Tories.  Yes, he also criticises Labour - but the attack on the Tories comes first and is more bitter in tone.  Here's a snippet: "David Cameron’s social policy is focused almost obsessively on marriage, cajoling people to conform to a single view of what a happy couple should look like. The Conservatives want marriage incentives in the tax system. And they may adopt Iain Duncan Smith’s proposals to put in place more legal roadblocks to divorce. This is both bizarre and patronising.