The Liberal Democrats are full of good intentions. Like Labour, they want to see investment in our public services grow over the next Parliament. But, unlike Labour, they can’t quite work out how to pay for all the promises they keep on making.
The Liberals’ pre-election manifesto, Freedom in a Liberal Society, shirks difficult decisions on taxing and spending and is also unwilling even to acknowledge that, time and again, Labour has delivered the very policies the Lib Dems support.
The Lib Dems’ attitude to the New Deal symbolises their whole approach. They claim to support it – but they voted against the windfall tax that funds it.
On health, the Lib Dems are trying to outbid Labour, but they fail to mention that they actually promised less in 1997 than the Government is now delivering. Their manifesto at the last election pledged to increase health spending by £3.5 billion over five years. Under Health Secretary Alan Milburn, however, Labour is spending £5 billion more each year between 2000 and 2004. And while the Liberals are promising a host of improvements to the NHS, they claim – totally falsely – they can pay for the lot with a 10p increase in the price of cigarettes.
The Liberals still cannot get over the fact that we’re now investing more in education than they promised in 1997. So, now they are promising to spend £3 billion more on education than Labour. They say they will fund this by raising income tax by a penny – except they have already pledged the fruits of that to pay for a host of other promises, including the abolition of tuition fees. The Liberals would also do well to take a closer look at what Labour are already doing in our classrooms. They say they will increase funding for school books and equipment and that they will provide free nursery education for all three and four year-olds. These are good policies – which is why Labour is already delivering them.
The Liberals are also busily engaged in a series of u-turns on a raft of popular Labour policies, which they initially opposed and claim now to support. Take, for instance, the 10p tax rate Gordon Brown introduced. The Liberals called this an ‘expensive gimmick’. Now they like it so much they promise to cut the rate to zero. However, the Liberals have already committed the money that they say will pay for this – a tax hike on those earning over £100,000 – to increase the basic state pension. And on pensions, the Liberals are committed to keeping the state pension rise linked to prices, not earnings.
The Liberal Democrats have spent the last four years promising the earth. It’s now time for them to set out just how they intend to pay for it.