The Sheffield Forgemasters "cut" is no such thing

Listening to the news tonight on Radio 4, I heard the report about the cuts announced by the Danny Alexander on behalf of the government today that total about £2 billion of spending. There are various things included in the mix but I want to focus on the one that seems to have yielded the strongest political reaction. That is the withdrawal of the loan for Sheffield Forgemasters.

The coverage on the news included Labour politicians strongly denouncing the move and claiming Nick Clegg (a Sheffield MP) would not be able to show his face in Sheffield again as well as an interview with the landlord of a local pub who was devastated about the loss of jobs he said this would cause and how he thinks workers at the plant with mortgages today would end up losing their homes.

However this is not true. The measure that was pledged (but crucially not funded) by the previous government in March was for a loan to expand the business. There are also suspicions that it was pledged to win electoral support for Labour in Sheffield just ahead of the election. Irrespective of whether this is true or not what has been "cut" today was a loan to fund expansion. Current jobs at the plant should not be affected by this. Indeed at the end of the news report after all the hyperbole this was made clear by the reporter. Anyone who had tuned out before the end of the report however would have been left with a very different impression.

Let's be clear about this, what was announced today for the Sheffield plant is not a cut. It is a withdrawal of a loan for expansion of a private company.

Also, as Chris Huhne has pointed out, the expansion plan seemed like a good one to him and he sees no reason why it could not be funded from the capital market. I absolutely agree. It is not the job of government to be stepping in to support this expansion of a private firm at a time when we have such a huge deficit, despite the outrage expressed by Labour politicians.

Does the coalition need to be more flexible?

The David Laws' resignation at the weekend put the coalition government in a bit of a pickle. They had to very quickly replace Laws as Chief Secretary to The Treasury not least in order to make sure that the markets were not spooked, although to be fair ministers are always appointed very rapidly.

However this government was even further constrained than recent governments because the replacement had to be another Lib Dem. In the event, Danny Alexander was promoted from being Secretary of State for Scotland to Chief Secretary. This then left a gap in his former role which also had to be filled by a Lib Dem and was by Michael Moore.

The thing is, I am wondering if this is the best way to go about things. It appears that the roles currently filled by Lib Dems have to be filled by Lib Dems if a minister resigns. That way the Lib Dems retain 5 cabinet ministers. Now I don't know if Danny Alexander is the best person from the government ranks to fulfil the role of Chief Secretary. Maybe he is, but that does not appear to have been the primary consideration but instead his party.

Perhaps at subsequent reshuffles both parties can try and be a bit more flexible. Maybe the Lib Dems don't always need to have 5 cabinet ministers. Maybe it could be 4 or 6 for example depending on who had performed well. I also think that the specific roles should be flexible too (this may be the case anyway, I am not clear on the terms of this) and that the current cabinet roles should not be locked to Lib Dems in perpetuity (and hence all the other roles locked out). I can certainly imagine that a junior Lib Dem minister performs very well over the next couple of years and merits promotion to become the cabinet minister for that department. That should be able to happen. Equally the boot may be on the other foot and a Conservative may shine in a junior role. I also do not want them locked out of the cabinet by inflexibility in the rules.

This may also mean that the great offices of state (Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary) need to be potentially opened up to Lib Dems too.

I expect some from both sides will baulk at these suggestions but if we are truly to have a "new politics" as we keep hearing then we cannot have the evolution of the government constrained by inflexible and dogmatic rules.

We have been mature enough to form a government consisting of two parties. I hope we can be mature enough to allow its future composition to be decided in a mature way too.

Is the structure of the coalition now compromised?

The Fink asks an interesting question today over on Comment Central: "Who will step into Danny Alexander's shoes?".

His point is that Danny Alexander was not previously just Scottish Secretary but also Nick Clegg's point man on maintaining the cohesion of the coalition from the Lib Dem side. he elaborates:

His job was to sit on Cabinet committees and work with Oliver Letwin on smoothing over policy differences and enforcing adherence to the agreement. Who does that now?

Alexander's was a real job, one that takes time, and he won't be able to combine it with being Chief Secretary. So his move leaves a real gap.

One has to guess, from the appointment of the junior Michael Moore as Secretary of State for Scotland, that Nick Clegg intends to do much of this work himself. But this might not work so well.

It may turn out to be the case that the real weakening of the Coalition will end up being the moving of Alexander as much as the moving of Laws.

Guido has also picked up on this theme today as he notes a mini-reshuffle of Lib Dem SpAds:

Alexander’s other SpAd, Alison Suttie, Clegg’s former Deputy Chief of Staff, appears to be out on her ear though as her old boss will no longer have time to mess about with Clegg in the Cabinet Office.

I think it is a mistake for Clegg to take on most of this work for himself if that is what is planned. He will have enough on his plate as it is driving through the political reforms and all his other duties as Deputy PM. The big advantage of having Alexander in this role was that he knows Clegg's mind better than most and was deeply involved in the original negotiations. However just because Alexander may have been very well placed surely does not mean nobody else can do the job?

I agree that his new job as Chief Secretary to the Treasury leaves him little time for the role himself but surely there are others in the Lib Dem ranks who could fulfil this function? Perhaps someone from the junior minister level. Or perhaps even from outside of the government. I can think of a few candidates who I expect would do a great job. Perhaps some Tories would have a problem with this, allowing another Lib Dem into a high profile role but they should look at the bigger picture.

What cannot be allowed to happen is for this forced mini-reshuffle to destabilise the government before it has even really got off the ground. That is not in the interests of either of the coalition partners.

Clegg does very well at #LibDems manifesto launch

Well I just watched the whole of the manifesto launch online. I have not had time to go through all the detail yet but its headlines are to focus on the 4 key themes which I think is the right way to go.

There were brief contributions from Sarah Teather, Danny Alexander and Vince Cable (who did well as always) but Nick Clegg's speech about the manifesto and then the way he handled questions from the media afterwards was very good. He was solid on the details, able to go in depth into ways in which savings could be made and nothing phased him. He even came across as quite statesman like at some points suggesting that irrespective of whoever wins the election, all parties will need to come together to be honest about the scale of the deficit and what needs to be done about it.

Even some non-Lib Dems on Twitter seemed to be impressed with Clegg, many of them the sort of people who would normally not hesitate to criticise which I think shows it is not just my party bias coming through here.

I live-tweeted the whole thing. Here are a few of my thoughts as I tweeted them:

Cable raises the issue of the structural deficit which is at about £70 billion and how #LibDems will tackle it.

Cable states there is no need for tax rises apart from £2 billion levy on banks. #LibDems

Cable: Society needs solidarity to get through difficult times + this is achieved by fairness in tax system. #LibDems

Nick Clegg: We should take power away from those vested interests who hoard it. #LibDems

#LibDems manifesto would hard-wire fairness into British society: Clegg

We will change the voting system so that every vote matters #LibDems - Oh yeah! Tickle my political erogenous zones Cleggy!

Clegg: Two other parties are conspiring to airbrush the recession out of the election campaign #LibDems

Clegg sounding really passionate now as he talks about fairness and potential for people #'LibDems

Good to hear Clegg describing no overall majority as a "balanced parliament". Hope that catches on more. #LibDems

Clegg is very on top of the detail of this manifesto. Bodes well for the leaders debate tomorrow #LibDems

Well I know I'm biased but overall a very impressive performance from Nick Clegg at the manifesto launch. #LibDems

Finally, just one thought to end on for now. Crispian Jago on Twitter drew my attention to one specific part of the manifesto: "Here's a novel idea from the lib dem manifesto: "Always base drugs policy on independent scientific advice" #scivote". Great stuff!