No word from Welsh Lib Dem bloggers over seriously uncomfortable claims by the Institute of Financial Studies (IFS) that the coalition government’s emergency budget dumped on poorer families. No mention either of demands by equality groups requiring ministers to come clean on what social issues, if any, they took into account.
Strange that the usually erudite Welsh Lib Dem finance spokesperson has no comment on the matter and yet finds time to blog about drugs in Swansea and selection gossip.
Liberal Democrat Voice mentions that Clegg has an article in today’s Financial Times in which he attempts the esoteric by refusing to slavishly comply with “statistical tests, based often on somewhat arbitrary [Labour] measures” and talking up qualitative values instead.
Yet this was the same guy who was described by the FT back in June as ‘obsessed’ with the dynamics of a certain income distribution chart because it very much suited his purposes and his speech writers.
Even then, tax analysts were seriously questioning his claims that he was backing tough but fair fiscal medicine. As the article states very clearly, “The trouble is that this chart showing the spread of pain from the tax rises and benefit cuts is just a snapshot of 2012. It won’t look as fair after that.”
We don’t recommend reading the entire tortuous article by Clegg unless, that is, you think you would enjoy a reworked account of Lib Dem commitment to fairness masquerading as a ham-fisted attempt to redefine the meaning of “progressive".
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