Trident: something else for the Lib Dem trophy cupboard?
The leadership have been a bit surprised by the vote to call an emergency debate on Trident. It was expecting the delegates to take a pot-shot at government housing benefit changes or GP commissioning changes instead.
Bizarrely though, as I blogged earlier today, the Trident decision (or non-decision) is going to turn out to be something else for the Lib Dem trophy cupboard.
The decision has been made that while research goes ahead the full and final go-ahead for the construction contracts won’t come til after the planned 2015 May election date. This was generated by the Treasury but has dividends for coalition relationship management that everyone’s spotted too.
Nick Clegg ruled out any sort of electoral pact with the Tories at the next general election. For anyone who missed it he’s expected to say it again in his leader’s speech tomorrow.
It was the Cameroon rising star Tory MP Nicholas Boles who argued for the pact in a pamphlet last week. Even some allies of Mr Boles think he may have jumped the gun a bit, raising the possibility at an early stage in the coalition when party leaders would have no choice but to rule it out emphatically.
Well that’s what Nick Clegg certainly did today but listening to the party membership today talk about where they think the party is positioned I’m not sure he’ll have any more room for manoeuvre even in 4 years time.
We got the first of the so-called “sweeties” or pre-agreed crowd-pleasers which the Coalition partners have rationed out to each other to announce at their respective party conferences.
Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander announced £900m would be ring-fenced in the HMRC budget to pursue tax avoidance. I wonder what the Speaker, not a fan of announcements away from Parliament, will make of that.
I asked one Lib Dem aide if they were risking being summoned to Parliament for “Urgent Questions” explaining their sweeties when the Commons is back and he looked mildly worried. “We hadn’t thought of that,” he said.