RSA on the fringe

September 21, 2009 by
Filed under: Credit crunch, Politics, The RSA 

The RSA held a very successful fringe meeting at the LibDem conference yesterday evening. Like last year we commissioned a special IPSOS Mori poll to help give the meeting focus (the findings are summarised here in the Times).

The keynote speaker was Vince Cable, LibDem Treasury spokesman and easily the country’s most popular politician. Justifying his plan to close the public spending gap over five years (not the eight argued for by the Government) he directly addressed the view that talk of a fiscal crisis is overblown. The danger of looking weak, he said, was that the credibility of the UK would be undermined, leading to a refusal of foreign investors to finance the debt at affordable interest rates.        

I am half convinced by this argument. It is true that the Government needs to be credible when it says it intends to get public finances back onto an even keel. However, the key factor is surely the underlying performance of the economy. In a growing economy, tax receipts go up and benefit costs are stable. If the UK was going in the right direction I’m not sure foreign investors would worry that much about how quickly the spending gap was closed. As Vince himself recognised, the UK’s net national debt is far from the worst among the developed nations.

Two other notable points from Cable’s speech were the accusation that an incoming Conservative Government would raise VAT towards 25% within a few months of taking office, and this wonderfully self deprecating statement. ‘My pamphlet [about spending cuts] contains lots of ideas. Some people won’t agree with them all. In fact I’m not sure I agree with them all’! 

The challenge for the LibDems is to get noticed and in this they are having a good few days. The polls tell us that we have a uniquely unpopular Prime Minister and an Opposition which still doesn’t entirely convince. Arguably, Nick Clegg’s success at capturing headlines has been won at the expense of some confusion about the Party’s core. I suspect his Bournemouth speech will be paid more attention than any by a LibDem leader for many years. 

( PS Apologies for being so bad at replying to comments on my pages. I really will get round to it this week)

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2 Comments on RSA on the fringe

  1. Chris Lenton on Mon, 21st Sep 2009 9:48 pm

    2. I followed the Liberal Conference and Vince, sadly he and the other parties simply just don’t get it do they, a) many MPs are discredited and completely disengaged from the voters, b) we are fed up with tax and more tax, c) we are fed up with too much government and interference, d) and we are irritated that our majority view on the EU is not being carried out (maybe the Irish or the Czechs may come to our rescue – God help us). If any of the parties proposed cuts of 20%, plan to reduce the tax burden as a percentage of GPD and gave us a referendum on the EU they would surely start to re-engage with the voters. The answers to our economic problems are not to suck yet more money out of the public but to live within your means. Vince maybe popular but I would not want him in the treasure or in charge of public finances.

  2. FutureGov » Useful links » links for 2009-09-22 on Tue, 22nd Sep 2009 1:01 pm

    3. [...] RSA on the fringe : Matthew Taylor’s blog (tags: libdem politics politicalparties events) [...]

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