Advice to Nick Clegg: Quit while you’re behind
Nick Clegg writes an excellent article in today’s FT but I think he ought to quit while he’s behind in this debate with the IFS. (The article is here and requires free registration to read) He makes two important points:
If fairness was a simple matter of benefits and taxes, it would be easy to achieve.
…A bit of an own goal, that. If it’s so easy, why didn’t you achieve it in the first budget then ?!
Imagine a workless couple living on £5,000 a year in benefits, currently categorised in the bottom decile. If we increase their benefits by £5 a week, they are £5 a week better off. In the language of the IFS, this counts as fairness, because overall the bottom decile has a little more money, and clearly it is a good thing that the couple have an extra £260 a year.
But imagine the government helps that couple find work. Now they have a shared income of £20,000 a year and fit into the fourth decile. This, in IFS-speak, is not fairness, because the government has not changed anyone’s taxes or benefits.
While this is fine as it stands, the problem with this line of argument is that I am not aware that legions of people on £5,000 a year have found jobs since May 6th, and it seems that their chances of finding work with this government are going to be less than they were on May 4th, given that, with the Osborne cuts “medicine” in progress, it seems unavoidable that public sector workers will be made unemployed in droves and hiring rates slashed.
So yes, this second Clegg point is a fair one, but there is no evidence that we are seeing, or have any reason to expect, squadrons of bottom decile people suddenly finding work. Quite the opposite. It seems likely that their ranks will be considerably swollen with redundant public service workers axed by Osborne.
So, Nick Clegg’s second point is completely redundant. The whole edifice of his defence is hollow.
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3 Responses to “Advice to Nick Clegg: Quit while you’re behind”
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Burbler-in-chief
Another really good post – thanks, Paul.
It would really help if Nick Clegg had a go at being a Liberal Democrat again, it would really help the party, and of course, the country.
(quote)
“If fairness was a simple matter of benefits and taxes, it would be easy to achieve.”
…A bit of an own goal, that. If it’s so easy, why didn’t you achieve it in the first budget then ?!
(/quote)
I think you may have misunderstood what he was saying.
He clearly says that taxes and benefits are *not* enough, that means, that you can’t achieve just by sorting out the budget properly.
So I guess he agrees with you….
@ Sue
George Osborne celebrated his budget as ‘Progessive’ and Nick Clegg said he’d hard-wired fairness into it.
The IFS has come back and said ‘no’ it’s regressive and not fair to give the poorest in society a great big pay and services cut compared to everyone else.
Ok, Nick Clegg says that they’ve got some nice plans, however, thus far, there’s just been lots of ministerial attacks on the sick, benefit scroungers and talk of how credit reference agencies are going to pry and spy on the benefit receivers just to check they’re not thieving (sounds very New Labour).
What’s more, there’s been cruel rhetoric designed to paint civil servants as tax-grabbing scum (you know what I mean) and the promise that hundreds of thousands of them are going to be unceremoniously dumped out of work very soon.
There have been no ideas on how they will get people back into work, doing fulfilling full-time work that their skills are suited to and it’s clear that there are many more unemployed than there are jobs.
No plans for growth, nothing positive…. just a lot of nasty attacks and I don’t think it’s very liberal. Nick Clegg must do something and do it soon to show that the coalition is not lost.
Time to move forward in a positive way.