Despite Clegg’s aspirations, OAP benefits are safe for now

Nick Clegg says in his interview on Channel 4 News that he’s going to table cuts to universal pensioner benefits in the 2015-16 spending round, withdrawing them for OAPs with assets over £1m. But the Tories think with that spending round starting in the last five weeks of this parliament, they’re not going to risk David Cameron’s very  on winter fuel allowance and TV licences. They’re not convinced the clawback would amount to much cash either. So it looks like Nick Clegg will have this bit of policy differentiation all to himself come the 2015 election.

I asked Nick Clegg whether more distrust of politicians was inevitable if, as he thinks, we live in an age of coalitions when manifestos will be munched into closed-door coalition negotiations in the days after an election. He said he thought manifestos should evolve and have sections that are “non-negotiables” and others that can be regarded as loo paper (no, he didn’t say that, but let’s say they’d be more aspirational). He said the Lib Dems had done this more than others in 2010 – it’s clearly something he’s pondered often behind the scenes.

The defeat on the secret courts bill was overwhelming. Senior Lib Dems say this doesn’t automatically mean they’ll withdraw support for the bill but it will give them more elbow power in negotiations. They don’t sound too miffed. The important thing from the DPM’s point of view is the crushing majority he won on the central project of the coalition – the economic policy – yesterday.

Follow @GaryGibbonBlog on Twitter.