Irony is not Danny Alexander’s strong point.
The Treasury Minister who has diligently carried George Osborne’s bag for him over the last 4 years or so, and happily popped up on screen to present the ‘human face’ of the cuts imposed by the Coalition, sprang to the defence of his Lib-Dem leader yesterday.
Mr Clegg was criticized by one of his own MP’s, Jeremy Browne, for leaving the Lib Dems in a “no-man’s land” between the Conservatives and Labour. Mr Browne has surely been a Liberal for long enough to know that his party has always tried yo position itself in the middle. They are the ‘nice’ Tories, attacking workers’ earnings, social benefits and long-won gains such as the NHS just like the Tories, but doing it with a sadder face. At the same time they try and present themselves as having a social conscience, caring about the poor and disabled, while again with sad faces attacking their benefits and rights with their Tory chums.
So when Danny says in a press interview “Far from being in a no-man’s land, our party stands proud of its record of economic competence during these difficult years” he sees no irony in that statement.
Meanwhile, on another page of the same newspaper, they report that the biggest cuts to public spending have been in the areas of greatest deprivation.
Since 2010-11 the amount the government spends has dropped by hundreds of pounds per head in areas like Manchester, Knowsley, Rochdale, and Liverpool. The cuts (oops, we don’t use the C-word in politics, I should say ‘austerity’) in these areas amount to about £300 or more per person per year. In the less deprived areas like St Albans the cuts have been £38.02 per head, in Richmond-upon-Thames they were £43.54, and in Wokingham the cuts were a mere £2.29.
Wokingham is probably a special case, because any spending cuts in that area might affect the Henley Regatta, which takes place on its banks every summer.
So Mr Alexander, if you are so proud of your economic competence, I can only presume that it was always your intention to attack the poor disproportionately.
Your Tory friends must be so proud of you.