Guest post from Nick Clegg: 'The economic rescue is working - but we know families are still feeling the squeeze'

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

The official figures are in: Britain’s economy is now larger than it was before the financial crash hit in 2008. There is still a way to go to get us where we need to be, with many British families still feeling the squeeze – but this is good news. It shows the rescue is working.

This is why the Liberal Democrats came into coalition in the first place, to provide the strong and stable government Britain needed to get back on its feet again. Four years on and Britain is going from strength to strength.

According to the latest IMF estimates, the UK will be the fastest growing economy in the G7 in 2014. We have more people in work than ever before, with 2 million more people working in the private sector than in 2010. The deficit is also down by a third: we’re borrowing around £3,000 less per family.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work and sacrifices of millions of families. Across the country, there are countless stories of workers in the private and public sector accepting pay cuts or pay freezes to prevent redundancies, keep businesses afloat and maintain essential public services.

In government, the Liberal Democrats have focused on doing everything we can to help Britain’s families weather this storm. The crucial question that every parent asks when weighing up whether to work or take on extra hours is: how much of my wages will I keep after I've paid for costs like tax, childcare, travel and so on?

To make that decision easier, we've secured a £800 tax cut for millions of ordinary people by raising the point at which you pay income tax to £10,000 - with a further increase to £10,500 next April.

The credibility we've gained by sticking to Britain’s economic plan has helped keep interest rates historically low, saving families money on their mortgage bills.

From this September, every family with young children will benefit from our plan to provide free school meals to pupils in reception classes, year one and year two – ensuring they get a healthy lunch and saving you around £400 for your household budget every year.

Also, if you’re a working parent with children under 12, we’re helping with childcare – from autumn next year, Government will contribute 20% of your childcare costs up to £10,000 a year. This covers parents working full-time and part-time and, for the first time ever, those mums and dads who run their own businesses. This will provide the equivalent of £2,000 per child, per year for every working family, except those on extremely high wages.

We've increased the hours of funded early-education available to every family with a 3 and 4-year-old to 15 hours a week, as well as 2-year-olds from poorer families.

We’re also making it easier for you to organise your childcare support in a way that works best for your family. From April next year, we’re introducing our new shared parental leave arrangements, enabling new parents to carve up the leave they’re entitled to with greater freedom and flexibility. We've already extended the right to request flexible working to everyone, to help boost that army of family members and friends you call on to help with childcare.

I want to help ensure that Britain’s children, whatever their family circumstances or background, get the best possible start in life. So, building on the success of our £2.5 billion Pupil Premium, next year, we’re giving state-funded early years providers an additional £300 to spend on every 3 and 4 year-old from poorer families to support their development further. This is one of the best possible investments we can make in our country’s future.

Together, we’re getting our economy back on track. There’s still a lot to do. But, as Britain moves from rescue to renewal, I'm determined to ensure that every single person has the opportunities and support they need to get on and build the life they want.

[WhistlingPot]

Bit I won't proclaim to be an expert on Iceland in any way, but the more I learn about what they did, the more respect I have for them.

They prioritised their own vulnerable first by making a better safety net.

They have been praised by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and Nobel prize winner Joeseph Stilitz, who said "What Iceland did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future generations with the mistakes of the financial system." For Financial Times economist Martin Wolf too, it was a triumph. "Iceland let the creditors of its banks hang. Ireland did not. Good for Iceland!"

"The people rejected an agreement they considered unfair." And later, their decisions were "upheld by an international court, which showed that the people's sense of justice was a reliable indicator to follow."

//www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/iceland-financial-recovery-banking-collapse

[ParsingFlatly]

Iceland was just one of several countries which protected its most vulnerable during the recession - with no negative impact on the economic recovery - according to the actual data, rather than ConDem idealogy: 'Recessions can hurt, but austerity kills'

Many of these cuts weren't even helpful to the economic recovery, never mind to the citizens on the receiving end.

[fanoftheinvisibleman]

I don't know how you dare to use the word credibility after the stunt you pulled to get the pretence of power. I would never trust anyone who claims to be liberal but effectively handed my vote to the tories no matter what crumbs you were thrown. It wasn't worth it. You misunderstood who your voters are imho. I will never vote lib dem again now, with or without you.

[WhistlingPot]

And my point about doing the "honorable thing" was really making reference to holding those responsible for terrible practices which led to the crash.

I'm not unsympathetic to any civilians or innocent parties who lost out, either here or in the Netherlands due to Iceland's actions. But really, the responsibility lay with the rogue bankers, and there is some sense of justice in that many went to jail, IMO.

With a proper safety net, losing out in such situations, means at least there is some fallback, and with just banking practices in place, there is greater potential to regenerate successfully. For me, these are the lessons Iceland's approach highlights, and are lessons we are failing to learn in this country.

[WhistlingPot]

[Scousadelic]

I agree that the austerity has been hardest on the wrong people and think you will pay the price for that, your Tory chums will happily throw you under the bus in their scrabble to retain power.

This recovery is not just not being felt by young families, it's not being felt by most of the North. I live in the Northwest and am seeing no improvement at all: In my work (both paid and voluntary) I am seeing more and more deprivation and struggle. I have just visited my son in London and it is clear that it is booming down there, loads of Sold signs, houses being renovated, vibrant restaurants and bars, etc. Surely it would be better to try to extend this "recovery" to those in real need in other parts of the country rather than giving childcare to all but the very wealthy and school dinners to all including the rich.

I hope the British public sees through this trying to buy votes and votes more altruistically next time

[MotherSouperior]

I agree with everything that's been said by the posters on here. You were elected by a sizeable vote on a clear platform: no tuition fees, no privatising of the NHS etc. You've shafted us on each and every one.

I've voted LibDem in every election since I could vote, Nick, so you can imagine how excited I was to see your post here and be able to tell one of your SPADs - or even an unpaid intern - how I feel about the party now.

It's more than the fact you've just chucked aside your policies like a used condom.

I never thought I'd ever see the Lib Dems bring in legislation that removes income support from the terminally ill, forces the disabled to live in abject poverty, undergo humiliating ‘assessments’, that stigmatizes the vulnerable or that you’d be part of a government that claimed people only use food banks 'because it's free food'

Have you had a look around this site? Ever read a thread and seen what peoples' lives are like? Or for parents of disabled children? (and plenty of people are working and still struggling, as you know, which makes your Government's attempts to stoke resentment against the unemployed even more cynical ).

Don't you think we notice that child poverty is rising (estimated to go up as a result of your Government’s decisions to 5m by 2020 by Oxfam) and family life is getting increasingly desperate for some (163% rise in the use of foodbanks, thanks to you – nice of the Govt to intimidate the Trussell Trust when they announced that, by the way).

Do you think we didn't notice that Vince sold the Royal Mail for a song to your nice friends in the city? Or the wave of scandals that keeps coming out of the City with no apparent consequences for behaviour that would put the rest of us behind bars?

Nice of you to do some typing for us (Or get your SPAD to do it...) but do you honestly think any of us now believes a word you have to say? Actions say so much more than words after all, don't you think, Nick?

You can self-flaggelate on local radio as much as you like or on here, but I can't think of a single way in which you could regain public trust, short of leaving public office and devoting the rest of your life to charitable works, like Profumo.

You don't deserve to be in public office.

[MotherSouperior]

I also really hope that you and your SPADs get just a some sense of the level of anger you've created. I've not read a thread like this since the last time the Mail came trip-trapping across.

Like you, Meglet the more I think about this brazen attempt to curry favour in the run-up to an election, the angrier I get.

Do you think we're actually stupid, Nick? Or will you tell us again that we 'just don't understand' you?

[stillstandingatthebusstop]

I voted Lib Dem in the last general election to stop the Tories winning in my area. Never again.

[gamerchick]

It's even making me cross. . The blatant bitter sweet milk sop JUST because there's an election coming up. It's outrageous man

Still the amount of apathy and downhearted ground down feeling amongst the voters now you lot might get somewhere. I call you lot the borg.. We are disposable. Work and regenerate until we drop controlled by a hive mind.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

This government has done nothing to tackle the real issues that people face. Some of the things that people I know have gone through in the last couple of years are scary. I can only conclude that you at the top hate the people at the bottom.

I can only conclude that every thing you do secures your position at the top at the expense of everyone else.

You really could have done better Nick, you really could.

[FannyFifer]

There are at least 12 food banks in Fife, people are bloody starving to death after getting their benefits "sanctioned" so excuse me for not believing a word you say.

Desperate words from a desperate man whose party & career (hopefully) are dead.

SHAME ON YOU!

I can't wait till Scotland votes YES in September, be rid of you & your ilk.

[FrontForward]

I'm incredulous at this post tbh. He has absolutely no idea of the mood of the country if he thinks that it will be received in a positive way

[gamerchick]

Well to be fair him and his peers have absolutely no idea what it's like to suffer.. It makes no sense to them because they don't see it. They're probably exposed to a fair amount of tailor made propaganda themselves.. just like we are with our benefit bashing telly.

He will never experience running out of toilet paper and having none in or counting the change in his pocket and wondering if he should bung it on the electric or buy some stuff to eat. Or going through the hoops and humiliation to get a referral to the food bank. They honest to god think that people care about the economy and country debt like they do when they don't realise that they go home to a well run house with plenty of grub in and many people are lying awake at night worrying about feeding their kids.

It always makes me laugh at the utter surprise they always have on their faces when taking a small peek outside of their bubble at the rest of the country though.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

But most people don't vote FrontForward, so their opinions don't make a difference. The system sucks but it's the only one we have. People have got to get out there and vote.

[Spottybra]

Your free school lunch is not applauded in this house. My 4yr old will be 5yrs old next month and he will move into yr1 still on packed lunches. Why does he need overlooked food from a school when we eat together every night from fresh vegetables and locally sourced meat? (Disclaimer, as much as we can afford).

Families are feeling the squeeze, and I'm utterly confused that last year our tax credits were wrong and we owed money back whilst this year, with an increased household income declared to them, we are entitled to them. The system is inexplicable to many of us.

Your targeting of the poor and vulnerable has been the coalitions downfall. Benefits may have needed to be cut. But so quickly and so fast is shocking.

Yet the absolutely biggest mistake in this household that the coalition has done is the academy and free school programme. My children are not your educational experiment.

[MotherSouperior]

That's what the LibDems and Conservatives are banking on, isn't it, Lumpy? That most people affected directly by their policies won't vote.

The parties are only now starting to make concerned faces because the starting guns been fired for the next election. And they are worried because recovery or not, it's now clear that the middle-classes have taken a hammering: standard of living plummeting, hopes for their children dashed, nowhere near the security or standard of living their parents' enjoyed. And most of these people probably do vote, which is why Clegg has bothered to pretend to write a post on here.

They've absolutely hammered and vilified the poor, disabled and vulnerable too, of course but they've clearly calculated that their votes are worthless, or as good as. As disposable as their lives, in fact.

To repeat FannyFifer, if Nick's people have bothered to read this far, people have actually died as the result of your policies.

How on earth do you sleep at night?

[Scarletbanner]

Apparently, this is all part of "Operation Roman", which is the LibDems trying to gain credit for the economic upturn. As in What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?

Just how stupid do they think we are?

[MotherSouperior]

Completely agree Spotty But you know the biggest spend on welfare is pensions, don't you? And that unemployment benefit is a fraction of the overall percentage spent on welfare? Most benefits (Housing etc) are paid to people who work:

www.jrf.org.uk/blog/2012/01/unemployed-benefits-fraction-of-welfare-bill

While the taxpayer subsidises multi-million pound companies like Sainsburys and Tesco with Government policies like workfare

[MotherSouperior]

That's not going to end well either, is it Scarlet? The kitten-weak attempt at humour and the 'shucks, you lot are so ungrateful, you just don't realise what we've DONE for you..' attitude.

I know what you've done. You've sold off the NHS, you bastards.



(I'd better leave this thread. It's no good for my blood pressure)

[BitOutOfPractice]

The Icelandic population rode the banking wave when times were good. I refuse to accept that, by refusing to pay back the debts, that they all did so out of a altruistic desire to protect the most vulnerable in their society. I think it was more of a turkeys don't vote for Christmas mentality. Which, while understandable , isn't necessarily " honourable" which was the word you used

[WhistlingPot]

Bit, honourable is the word I used, and I stand by it.

What the Icelandic nation did was far more honourable than anything this coalition has done.

To have had their decisions "upheld by an international court" indicates to me the responsibility for the debts clearly lay elsewhere and not in their tax payers pockets.

Perhaps we'll have to agree to differ, so as not to detract too much further on this thread, but I may concede slightly and say “Iceland did it the more honourable way”.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

Exactly MadameSouperior, hence why the lower echelons are targeted and the pensioners are not.

It's the viciousness that appalled me. Do people really think the benefits scrounger was responsible for the deficit? The people who caused the crisis got away scot free while the people at the bottom have been shamed and vilified. The worst part is that a lot of idiots believe the crap that's spouted by the right wing media.

As other posters have said, people have died under these changes. Yet big business thrives and continues to behave in an unacceptable manner contributing nothing to our society.

House prices continue to rise and the government does nothing to address this. God knows what a full on Tory government would have done.