27th April 2009
What is the point of the Liberal Democrats?
For some reason the Welsh Lib Dems seem to have decided that their main purpose in life is to attack Plaid Cymru. This is progress as far as they are concerned as I am not sure there was any point to the Liberal Democrats up until now. When they were in Coalition - a long time ago - we spent most of the time ignoring them as basically irrelevant. They, on the other hand, delight in talking about the Plaid-Labour coalition, all the while reminding people that Plaid is a credible and competent party of Government, while they are, well, basically irrelevant but now even more so since they decided that entering into Government with anyone was, well, just too hard.
I was as suprised as anyone to see us attacked as ‘gutless’ by the very nice Roger Williams who is a neighbouring MP with whom I have had the best of relationships (which it cannot be said, truth be told, for some of my other neighbours). The thought of Roger as the new Lib Dem attack dog fills me more with a sense of disbelief than fear I have to admit. It puts me in mind of that famous put-down by Dennis Healey that being attacked by Geoffrey Howe was like being savaged by a dead sheep.
Kirsty Williams in her party’s English-language Conference PPB (the Welsh language one was much more entertaining though for all the wrong reasons) tried to lump in Labour, the Conservatives and Plaid as followers of ne0-liberal free-market fundamentalism. While Thatcher and Blair clearly were deregulating pro-market privatisers I dont see how you can credibly make that charge of anyone in Plaid Cymru. Quite frankly it makes them look ridiculous as they’re the party that invented economic liberalism - as Orange Book Liberals like David Laws are always keen to point out. Presumably that’s why the Lib Dems were the first political party to advocate the privatisation of the Royal Mint and the Royal Mail - and they have the gall to suggest we are right-wing!
Being accused of being ‘other-wordly’ by Peter Black is a bit like being called a geek by someone at a Star-Trek convention. Peter is deeply sceptical about our call in our economic strategy for Wales for a fiscal stimulus of £60 billion across the UK, £3 billion for Wales. In hyper-ventillating mode he says:
“Plaid Cymru are living in cloud-cuckoo land if they think that that sort of money is available to the Treasury to invest in Wales. The Chancellor has just announced record borrowing levels for goodness sake, £175 billion this year alone.”
Well, for goodness sake, Peter may I point out that we were joined in calling for a substantial additional fiscal stimulus in last week’s Budget by the National Institute for Social and Economic Research, David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, and the Sustainable Development Commission. Accuse us of many things, Peter, but don’t make it economic illiteracy as you’ll end up looking stupid.
And by all means continue to attack Plaid because it makes you look like the directionless, Anglo-centric and, if you don’t mind me saying, slightly insipid party that you appear to have become.
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