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Nick Robinson
Political editor
Nick Clegg's sticking to Plan A
Nick Clegg says the coalition faces a gargantuan task
If you think you know what Lib Dems look like, Nick Clegg wants you to think again.
He wants you to see them not as a party of nice, worthy, unthreatening people who "want to stop the world and get off" but as a party that looks and sounds like a party of power - a party that matters enough to make people angry.
The Liberal Democrats came to this conference fearing that Clegg's alliance with David Cameron could doom them to electoral disaster.
He came to tell them that they - and the country - were on a journey to a better place "from the comforts of opposition to the hard realities of government, from the sacrifices of austerity to the rewards of shared prosperity".
The coalition, he said, faced a gargantuan task of building a new economy from the rubble of the old.
There, as a symbol it could be done, was 81-year-old Maurice Reeves, the man whose family furniture shop was reduced to ashes in last Summer's riots and who this year re-opened it.
After days of highlighting the Liberal Democrats' differences with the Conservatives, the deputy prime minister highlighted that they were in lock-step on the economy - backing a Plan A which he insisted was more flexible, more pro-growth than its critics accepted.
In other words politically, as well as economically, he's sticking to Plan A. If it fails he's in trouble. So's his party. And so is everybody else.
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HARDtalk
Comment number 188.
sagamix27th September 2012 - 23:24
DSJ 183
I'm not saying there isn't an unemployable underclass - there is.
Or that the rich are particularly prone to indolence. Indolence cuts right across classes and wealth brackets.
Plus the indolent (whether rich or poor or neither) are likely to not bother voting (obviously).
So that statement of yours - 'Labour target the idolent vote' - made no sense to me, that's all it was.
Link to this (Comment number 188)
Comment number 187.
lefty1127th September 2012 - 23:13
185 David St John
I am simply pointing out how inane steves position is due to his parties/his own unsurpassed hypocrisy itself.
Re-funding, i'm not saying that UKIP shouldnt receive funding from europe, just that it makes them look hypocritical and frankly rediculous to do so considering their main policy aim. Have another go at adressing post 146 and 149 diffcult as you may find it.
Link to this (Comment number 187)
Comment number 186.
Steve_M-H27th September 2012 - 21:32
177#
it may not advance the position, but it serves to give representation to the view that the whole of the UK isnt just going to acquiesce to a full blown EU superstate.
182#
If the unions pulled the plug on you, your party would be dead in the water in 48hrs...the only thing stopping you from being foreclosed.
179#
Typical kneejerk lefty response. Youre either with us or a Tory. BORING!
Link to this (Comment number 186)
Comment number 185.
John_Bull27th September 2012 - 21:19
#182.lefty11
“It’s only hypocrisy when it’s someone else” + “you’re stupid because you can’t see I’m right”
Yes, typical lefty style debating.
However, I think you’re missing an important point (probably because it suits). To argue, that only parties who are pro the EU should be funded completely undermines the very principle of democracy.
Link to this (Comment number 185)
Comment number 184.
Steve_M-H27th September 2012 - 21:15
175#
Whats wrong with employing family members? Lots of your lot did just that in the last parliament, including your former Welsh SOS. I dont see that UKIP has any hypocrisy to defend. Not like your lot, banging on abt a cabinet of tax avoiding millionaires, when yours is no different (RedEd&bro), is full of nepotism (Blair Jr, Dromey Jr and Straw Jr trying to line up safe Labour seats, I note).
Link to this (Comment number 184)
Comments 5 of 188