Tuesday, September 10, 2013

David Laws: Lib Dem policy announcements "agreed with the Conservatives"

The BBC News website has a report of a pre-conference briefing by David Laws. It contains this remarkable passage:
The education and Cabinet Office minister said they would use their week in Glasgow to start work on a set of distinctive Lib Dem policies to put before voters in 2015. 
But he stressed that the final decision on what would go in the manifesto would not be made until the second half of 2014. 
And although there will be a string of new policy announcements in Glasgow, they have all been agreed with the Conservatives, reflecting the coalition's desire to continue "right up to the wire".
The BBC's news writing is not always of the best, and what I suspect this means is that Liberal Democrat ministers will be announcing new initiatives and new spending in Glasgow. That is what governing parties do at their conferences.

I am sure the Conservatives will be doing it in Manchester at the end of the month and it sensible if the two parties know what each other's ministers are doing.

And can Liberal Democrat policy be simply "announced" in this way?

But it is a mark of how things have been going in recent months that I would welcome a reassurance from the leadership. We have not given the Conservative Party a veto over our own policies, have we?

5 comments:

  1. Jonathan: "But it is a mark of how things have been going in recent months that I would welcome a reassurance from the leadership that we have not given the Conservative Party a veto over our own policies."

    Is that a meaningful, easy to read sentence?

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  2. It is meaningful, but as you imply it is not easy to read I have turned it into two sentences.

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  3. "Someone has put poison in my poison."

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  4. Your "own policies"? Who said satire was dead! Last night’s vote on the Gagging Bill was secured by the Lib Dems. Even tories voted against it . Even "look at me" Sarah Teather voted for it . Human dust.

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  5. It used to be said, scratch a tory and get a liberal.

    Now you dont even have to buff the paintwork.

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