Nick Clegg tells Lib Dems to brutalise Tories over tax

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/06/clegg-lib-dems-brutalise-tories

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Nick Clegg has instructed his leading ministers to “brutalise” the Tories after George Osborne created an “open goal” for the Liberal Democrats by exempting the rich from further tax increases and using a freeze in benefits for the working poor to help eliminate the budget deficit.

In a sign of how coalition relations have descended into trench warfare in the runup to the election, the deputy prime minister has told senior Liberal Democrats to reach out to “soft Tories” by saying that the chancellor is taking Conservatives back a decade to the era of the nasty party.

The instructions from Clegg, who accused the Tories of “beating up on the poor”, came as the opening of the Liberal Democrat conference was dominated by speculation about future coalition partners if voters elect another hung parliament in May’s general election.

Norman Lamb, the care minister, confirmed that the Lib Dems were intensifying their efforts to reach out to “soft Tories” when he said he did not envisage Ed Miliband as a credible prime minister and warned it would be dangerous to go into coalition with Labour on a low share of the vote. Clegg warned that Labour would preside over a “broken economy” because Miliband’s failure to mention the deficit in his conference speech showed that Labour failed to understand the central economic challenge facing Britain.

The focus on appealing to “soft Tories” suggests that the leadership holds out little hope of winning back former Lib Dem voters who switched to Labour after the coalition was formed.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, will on Monday move to show that the Lib Dems can still put their imprint on progressive government policies when he announces plans to raise the minimum wage for apprentices by a third, from £2.73 to £3.79 an hour. The business secretary will also outline plans to improve the working conditions of up to a million people on so called “worker contracts”, which offer weaker rights than normal employment contracts.

In his speech to the Lib Dem conference, Cable will announce that he is to write to the Low Pay Commission to suggest that the minimum wage rate for apprentices in their first year – the lowest of four tiers of the national minimum wage – should be scrapped and rolled into the rate for those aged between 16 and 17. The change would give a pay rise of just over £1 an hour to about 31,000 apprentices in their first year of work. The commission will say next spring whether it accepts Cable’s proposal, which would take effect in the autumn of 2015 at the same time as the annual uprating of the minimum wage which is due to increase to £7 an hour for adults at that time.

The business secretary will also announce a review to highlight the way in which up to one million workers are denied basic rights in areas such as unfair dismissal, collective redundancy consultation and maternity and paternity pay.

But the first full day of the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow was dominated by speculation about future coalition partners and a searing attack by Clegg on the Tories. The deputy prime minister drew a contrast with the chancellor when he said that “of course” the Lib Dems would tackle the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy as he criticised the Tories for “beating up on the poor” and savaging public services in the final stage of eliminating the structural budget deficit.

Clegg expressed astonishment that Osborne had announced he would achieve the agreed coalition target of eliminating the structural budget deficit by 2018 without any extra tax rises for the wealthy and by freezing benefits for the working-age poor. On the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, Clegg warned of the “extremism” of the Tory plans as he said: “The Conservatives said almost with almost undisguised relish that they were not going to ask the wealthiest in society to pay a single penny towards completing the deficit reduction effort. Secondly, they were only going to ask the working-age poor to make further sacrifices and that they would savage unprotected budgets, whether it is the police, social services, schools and so on.”.

Senior Lib Dems said they could not believe their luck when Osborne delivered his speech. One source said: “You are going to see us brutalise the Tories between now and the election. Osborne’s speech is an open goal for us as we work to reach out to soft Tories who are fiscally responsible but do not like any hint of a nasty party.” Norman Lamb highlighted the party’s attempt to reach out to such voters when he warned of the dangers of a Miliband premiership. Speaking at a fringe meeting, the social care minister said: “I’m afraid I don’t see Ed Miliband as a prime minister. The idea of us being latched into a Labour government with a low percentage of the vote led by Ed Miliband – what’s gone on with France under Hollande [shows] it could be enormously damaging for our party to be [in] that sort of relationship.”