She swears, she drinks, she has extramarital flings... The modern MP's wife is unrecognisable from the simpering cheerleader of the past. So what has changed? And what impact will the other halves have on this year's election?

When Alicia Collinson's husband, Damian Green, was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1997, she was provided with a small pamphlet produced by the Parliamentary Christian Wives Fellowship. It was called "Two for the Price of One" and the title was printed across the cover in precisely the same shade of green as the leather benches inside the House of Commons chamber. The eight-page leaflet contained all manner of helpful tips and guidance on how to be a politician's wife in a breezy style that seemed to have come straight from the 1950s.

"If you look good, you feel good," the authors stated cheerily, before going on to advise that: "For wives, it is a great help to have a very good relationship with your local garage as you are bound to break down when your dearly beloved is on a parliamentary trip to China and you may need rescuing."

But it was one sentence in particular that enraged Alicia Collinson. "It's this one," she says, pushing the pamphlet across the coffee table and jabbing at the relevant page. "They say: 'Try to ensure the absent parent speaks each week on the phone to each child personally if possible.'" Collinson snorts with indignation. "That really got my goat. It's full of things like that, assuming you can do things while your husband's in parliament. Well, no, you can't if you're working, too. There was this assumption that you were just part of the package."

Times have changed dramatically for the political wife. In previous decades an MP's wife was expected to be little more than a photogenic adjunct to her husband, someone who could be relied upon to judge cake-baking contests at the village fete and smile prettily in public. Most of the time this charming little creature would be careful not to speak out of turn or proffer any political opinion that might risk embarrassing her husband or his party. Her role, like that of Clementine Churchill or Clarissa Eden before her, was to raise children, run a household and provide constant support to her overworked and sporadically bad-tempered spouse.

On the rare occasion that a wife did speak out, it resulted in a horrified outcry. Margot, the wife of former prime minister Herbert Asquith, was blamed for her husband's political downfall after she publicly accused her stepson of being drunk. (He had, in fact, been shell-shocked during the First World War.) Now, however, Margot Asquith's indelicate comment would barely merit a raised eyebrow. In modern politics, it is quite normal for the wife of the chancellor to scream the "c" word in reference to her husband's treacherous colleagues, as Maggie Darling was reported to have done in Andrew Rawnsley's recent book about the fall of New Labour. Over the past few months a worrying number of political wives (and it is, on the whole, still largely wives rather than husbands) have crawled out of the woodwork to admit to all sorts of brazen peccadilloes, including binge drinking, promiscuity and the odd extramarital affair.

Sally Bercow, the wife of the Commons speaker, gave an extraordinary interview last December in which she admitted to a debauched past, drinking more than two bottles of wine a day and engaging in a string of one-night stands. "I would end up sometimes at a bar and someone would send a drink over, and I'd think: 'Why not?' and we'd go home together," she said. "I liked the excitement of not knowing how a night was going to end."

Unlike the quietly spoken, loyal wife of parliamentary legend, Mrs Bercow appeared to be wholly unconcerned as to whether she might be diminishing her husband's professional kudos. Her political opinions, too, are unashamedly opposed to her spouse's: whereas John Bercow was a Tory MP before becoming speaker, Sally Bercow is standing as a Labour councillor in Pimlico, central London.

Then, in January, it emerged that Iris Robinson, the wife of the Northern Irish first minister, had an affair with a 19-year-old when she was 58. The ensuing barrage of "Mrs Robinson"-themed newspaper headlines forced Peter Robinson to stand down temporarily. Although both the Robinson and Bercow sagas are extreme examples, there is a growing trend for parliamentary spouses to emerge from the shadows.

Samantha Cameron, wife of the Conservative leader, is creative director at Smythson, the luxury stationery firm. Ed Miliband's partner, Justine Thornton, is a senior environmental lawyer. Sarah Brown, wife of the prime minister, enjoyed a successful career in public relations before taking up permanent residence in No 10. Shadow chancellor George Osborne's wife, Frances, is a bestselling biographer, and Sandra Howard, wife of former Conservative leader Michael Howard, has written three novels.

"I think the role has changed a bit," says Mrs Howard, whose latest novel, A Matter of Loyalty, was published last year. "Three decades ago there were more wives who didn't have their own career. Cherie Blair did us a really good service by continuing to work as a barrister while her husband was the prime minister because no one could ever complain about a spouse working again."

"It's a shift that mirrors what has happened in society," agrees Alicia Collinson, author of Politics for Partners: How to Live with a Politician and a barrister specialising in family law. She deliberately chose not to take her husband's surname. "I got very criticised in the press when Damian first became involved in politics because I was a barrister and had my own job, but now the constituency isn't fussed about it… I used to know one MP who talked about his wife being 'the hostage' in the constituency." Collinson takes a sip of her tea. "He's now married to someone else."

Not only are political wives no longer quite held hostage in the shires, they are seen as potential vote-winners. The impact of Michelle Obama, who has expanded the role of political wife and is seen as a crucial asset to her husband's success, is beginning to make itself felt in the UK. Whereas in the past an MP's spouse was occasionally wheeled out by central office for a pre-election photo opportunity, the modern political wife has a far more complex role. She must juggle the demands of career and family while developing a public persona that is sufficiently straightforward to be inoffensive and yet interesting enough to intrigue the electorate. Her clothes will be scrutinised and her past raked over. She is expected to have an opinion and yet to keep it to herself. And when her husband films a YouTube broadcast from his bespoke Notting Hill kitchen, she must appear in the background amid the cereal boxes and Blu-Tacked toddlers' paintings, busy and yet in control: the perfect appeal to the Mumsnet generation.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that some political wives, like Sally Bercow or Iris Robinson, chafe against the restrictions imposed upon them. Others, like Miriam González Durántez, wife of the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, take a more relaxed approach. González, who heads up the trade department of the international law firm DLA Piper, says that a political wife can be "supportive without being submissive… I am sufficiently confident to understand I can have a proper career, and I also understand I happen to be married to Nick and people will want legitimately to have a look into who he is as a person – and provided that they respect our children I'm happy for anybody to have a look. What you see is what you get."

When we meet in a boardroom at her company headquarters in London, González seeps unapologetic glamour. She has film-star looks and hair that appears expensively blow-dried. Today she is wearing a grey silk shift dress, a chunky gold necklace and fashionable high-heeled ankle boots. It would be difficult to imagine anyone less like the pink-cheeked, floral-swathed MP's wife of popular imagination.

González embodies the new breed of "Sam Cams", the independent career women and mothers who happen to be married to politicians but who are determined not to be defined by their spouses and who share the running of the household as equally as possible. The Cleggs have three sons under the age of eight: their father takes them to school every morning and their mother puts them to bed at night.

"Nick's well known with the neighbours for going to do a very early interview and coming back to go to school before going to Westminster," says González. Do the children understand what their father does? "Partly. My five-year-old thinks he's the captain of the Liberal Democrats. My eight-year-old is quite perceptive and understands some of it – he advises on plans to capture Osama bin Laden."

Westminster hours, however, remain extremely inconvenient for MPs with young children (even since Labour's landslide victory in 1997, when 120 of the new MPs were women, many of whom were appalled by the unsociable working hours and pitifully outdated office equipment). "It isn't friendly for families," says González. "I remember, for example, being very, very shocked – and let's put this into context: it must be a Westminster village reaction – but I remember Nick saying at some point: 'I'm a father before being a politician', and some colleagues were actually thinking: 'What a weird thing to say.' I was thinking: 'Surely that is a perfectly normal thing to say?' I think it's incredibly unuseful that Westminster tends to vote at 10 in the evening rather than at four in the afternoon, like you would do in any other kind of job. There's a lot of evening engagements and media engagements, and that takes a toll on the family."

It is perhaps partly for this reason that some wives still choose to stay quietly behind the scenes, determinedly ignoring the onward march of equal opportunities. For every Miriam González there is a "Surrendered Wife" like Norma Major, who stood smiling and faithful beside her husband without uttering a single controversial word in public throughout his premiership and who remained loyal to him even after it emerged that he'd had an affair with Edwina Currie. Pauline Prescott, who stood by husband John despite a dalliance with his secretary, calls herself one of a "dying breed" in her autobiography, and is dismissive of "women's libbers".

Sandra Howard, who did not publish her first book until her husband had stood down as leader, says the old-style political wife works on the principle that "anything you can do to help, you do. If allowing the person you love to do what they want to do means a little bit of not thinking about what you want to do, it's almost a non-question."

The Surrendered Wife must bite her tongue when asked for her opinion, lest she run the risk of embarrassing her husband. "I remember being told that a political spouse will never win the seat for their partner, but they can sure as hell lose it," says Howard.

When the expenses scandal broke last year, it emerged that almost 80 MPs employed either their wives or girlfriends as parliamentary assistants, secretaries or case workers. (Political husbands are still very much the exception to the rule: Caroline Flint, the Labour MP for Don Valley, employs her husband Phil Cole to run her constituency office, while Margaret Beckett's spouse, Leo, has been her parliamentary assistant for years.) At the time, there was an outcry at the thought of family members cashing in courtesy of the taxpayer, and the rules governing the employment of spouses and family members are currently under review. The constituency wives, many of whom had worked extremely hard for their MP husbands, felt they had been unfairly scapegoated. Alicia Collinson recalls a trip to the local garden centre with her husband at the height of the expenses scandal to buy some plants. "A man driving his car wound down his window and shouted out: 'I hope you've got a receipt for that,' and then drove off thinking he was very clever. We've never claimed for gardening. It was just ignorant.

"The climate has changed. The respect that parliamentarians were held in is no more... the level of contempt one experiences is quite extraordinary. It's been very unpleasant. A lot of spouses have been very upset."

Another wife, who has run her husband's constituency office for the last 17 years, says: "I got very badly bruised by the whole thing. People don't realise how hard we work or the hours we put in. We're the ones who are there at seven in the morning or 11 at night when the phone goes."

It is perhaps these wives – the uncomplaining troopers who keep their husbands' schedules organised and their stationery cupboards stocked with Post-it notes – who provide the bridge between the surrendered spouses of the past and the sleekly independent career women of modern times.

But although the increasing number of MPs' wives pursuing their own careers has been heralded as some sort of feminist breakthrough, much of the media coverage of these women remains distinctly sexist. There is a lingering sense, in spite of the enormous strides made by women such as Cherie Booth and Miriam González, that a political wife's role is to gaze adoringly at her husband as he makes a keynote speech or to be photographed walking along the Brighton seafront during party conference season, appearing well dressed but not too glamorous in case she is accused of being out of touch with the common man (or woman).

So it is that Sarah Brown – doubtless influenced by the intimate confessions of her Michelle Obama about the president's bad morning breath – has twice taken to the podium to introduce her husband to the Labour party conference. In 2008 she smiled ingratiatingly and called him "my hero". Last year she exclusively revealed that Gordon was "not a saint – he's messy, he's noisy, he gets up at a terrible hour".

Mrs Brown, who gave up a career in PR, has carved out a niche as an electoral accessory whose job it is to show Gordon in a warmer, more modern light. One minute Mrs Brown will be in a TV studio, eyes welling up as she listens to her husband unburden his soul to Piers Morgan, the next she will be opening London Fashion Week wearing an Erdem dress and updating her Twitter account (1,118,558 followers and counting, including Paris Hilton and Naomi Campbell).

Sarah Brown has provided us with a whole new category of political spouse: a wife who knows how to exploit modern media in order to promote herself and her husband as a successful brand. She is known to have used her sartorial influence to overhaul her husband's wardrobe and her PR savvy to insist that the couple went on holiday in Southwold, Suffolk last year in an effort to prove their fondness for England. In fact, so successful has she been in modelling herself as cheerleader-in-chief that one member of the prime minister's inner circle is said to have dubbed her "Mrs Goebbels".

As the general election approaches, the leaders' wives in particular will have a prominent role to play in wooing the voters. Already there have been snide comments emanating from government sources that Samantha Cameron does less charity work than her counterpart in No 10. And at the recent Tory spring conference it felt as though far more attention was paid to the cut of Mrs Cameron's silk ruffled blouse than to what her husband had to say about fixing "broken Britain".

"I think the trouble with politicians is they have a fixed image in the media which doesn't involve their personality," says Alicia Collinson. "So having another side to both David Cameron and Gordon Brown and allowing their wives to convey something that isn't just the stiff upper lip of a politician can be helpful for the electorate in the run-up to an election. They can see what a politician is like from every angle."

But reactions to Sarah Brown's celebrity among the other political wives are mixed. Some find her acting the part of adoring spouse on the national stage a touch retrograde. Miriam González says she'd always go to see Nick deliver a major speech and would expect him to do the same, but adds that: "I wouldn't ask him to come to the podium to kiss me afterwards, and that is not what I'd do in reverse." Others, like Alicia Collinson, believe that having a loyal wife in the public eye "suggests that the politician has at least got good taste".

And perhaps in the end it is not a wholly irrational reason to vote for a particular MP. They might lie about tax rises, cheat on their expenses and have terrible breath in the morning, but at least they have the love of a good woman who knows how to make friends with Paris Hilton on Twitter.

From eternally Tory Eastbourne to the Labour heartlands of West Yorkshire, the Liberal Democrats are convinced that they can take seats off both main parties at the forthcoming general election and end up holding the balance of power in a hung parliament. Could it really happen?

Annemarie Field smiled, her pale blue eyes sparkling in the sunshine. "I always used to say that if you put a blue rosette on a cornflakes packet it would win a general election in Eastbourne. This town is Conservative." She should know, having worked for the town's two local papers since 1985. But this year might be different.

Eastbourne is one of the top target seats for the Liberal Democrats, who are determined to overturn a Tory majority of 1,124. Field described the party's campaigners as an army of "yellow ants" marching through the streets. With two months to go, they are delivering 45,000 leaflets and 25,000 targeted letters every fortnight. Their candidate, Stephen Lloyd, will knock on 2,000 more doors before 6 May.

"We don't have multimillion-pound donations from Lord Ashcroft or the unions," said Danny Alexander, the MP who chairs the group in charge of the party's manifesto. But the Lib Dems appear to have something else: an unprecedented ability to organise locally.

That is what they are doing against the Tories in the south – and against Labour, largely in the north. It is a geographical spread which brings accusations that the party changes its message to suit its audience.

In this seaside town, the Lib Dems' focus has been car parking – and, in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal, on the sitting Tory MP's second home.

"The Lib Dems are desperate for Eastbourne," said Field, walking into the newspapers' main office. "If I was a gambling person I wouldn't know who to put my money on," she said to a male colleague. He swung his chair round to face her and nodded. "In fact, I might put my money on Stephen Lloyd," he said. "Me too," boomed another, raising his arm.

It is not only in Eastbourne where the Liberal Democrats are increasingly optimistic. At their party's spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, the same conversations could be heard in the hallways, the restaurants and the bars. There was talk of whether the party could gain from public fury about expenses; debate about how the words "hung parliament" had thrown the party into the news like never before; chatter about whether Nick Clegg could exploit his role as equal player in the three televised leaders' debates.

By yesterday many were daring to consider the question: could the 2010 general election be a turning point? They were boosted by the news that Edward McMillan-Scott, a former Tory MEP who once headed the party's grouping in Brussels, had joined the party.

Then there was the rallying call from their leader. "On Monday morning I want you to get out there and go for broke in what will be the biggest fight of our political lives," he told delegates, who rose to their feet and roared in appreciation. It all sounded good, but then again hadn't they heard it all before? Wasn't it much more likely that the activists dressed in yellow would wake up on the morning of 7 May disappointed again?

Some disagreed. "I think this election is starting to look different," said Olly Grender, a former party director of communications who worked with Paddy Ashdown. "What is uniquely interesting is the strength of feeling that it is time for a change, and the same strength of opinion that David Cameron is not the embodiment of that change. That creates an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats."

Grender said the televised debates were vital. The fact that broadcasters, and in particular the BBC, were taking the party seriously would create a "ripple effect". Then there was the "hung parliament scenario", which Grender called a "double-edged sword". It made the party relevant but also raised fears among voters of its economic dangers.

"I headed the media in 1992 and anyone involved in that campaign came out deeply scarred," said Grender, as he recalled the "absolute certainty" with which pollsters predicted a hung parliament in the exit polls and the "absolute nonsense" that proved to be the cold light of day.

Grender said it was "critical" that Clegg was not drawn on the issue. On Friday he wasn't. On stage, he referred to "you know what", baiting journalists looking for any sign that he was ready to make a pact. Clegg lifted up his red tie, then smiled and pulled open his jacket to reveal a blue lining.

Today he will tell delegates in his conference speech that it is for the public to decide. "I am not a kingmaker. The 45 million voters of Britain are the kingmakers. They give the politicians their marching orders, not the other way around. It's called democracy," he will say.

Clegg says his party is interested in promoting its four main areas of policy focus: tax, education, cleaner politics and the financial crisis. Nevertheless, fears emerged among left-of-centre delegates at the weekend that he would get too close to Cameron .

Yesterday evening MPs and others gathered for a fringe meeting to formally launch the Social Liberal Forum – a pressure group committed to "reinventing the left" in Britain. Some admitted they were uneasy about the notion of a Tory-Lib Dem pact.

Clegg had aimed to reassure delegates by clarifying comments that appeared to support the former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. "I violently opposed and was hostile to pretty well everything she did," he said.

But Grender argued most delegates would not put themselves on the left-right political spectrum. "There is a strength of philosophy and it is liberalism."

Many people spoke at conference about what was happening outside, on the streets of Birmingham, through Yorkshire and into Newcastle, across Cambridge, London and into the south-west. Tim Farron, who is defending a majority of only 267 in Cumbria, told delegates that the Lib Dems had to deliver 10 times more leaflets that their rivals just to be heard. In a rousing speech, the MP compared the campaign to a football match in its final five minutes.

John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said he had seen activists in action in his own constituency and "boy, are they fighting for it". But he also introduced a dose of realism, saying that the national polls suggested the party was "indestructible yet uninflatable". That said, the key to the general election could be the Lib Dem-Tory marginals, he said. The results there could determine whether or not Cameron won his much-yearned-for majority.

In Eastbourne, seagulls flocked above the union flag flapping in the wind over the station, beside neat, landscaped gardens which run parallel to the beach and above rows of well-kept, sizeable homes. At 100 Seaside Road last week, the windows were filled with yellow and orange posters. Four volunteers sat inside the front room rhythmically picking up leaflets and stuffing them into envelopes.

This war room has been active for years, not months, funded by Lloyd and a large number of relatively small donations. The candidate's message is persistently local: his three top issues are a campaign against a parking scheme, a fight to save a local college and policing.

As one of the writers at the Eastbourne Herald claimed: "You can't win in Eastbourne with Lib Dem policies." And Lloyd's team were having "field day" attacking the local Tory MP, he added, largely because it had emerged that Nigel Waterson's children went to school near a home he owns miles away in Beckenham, Kent.

"I live locally, I shop locally, I know the issues that people experience every day because I experience them too," said Lloyd, repeating the mantra he has used to the people of Eastbourne.

The other message repeated again and again was that only the Lib Dems could beat the Tories in Eastbourne. Lloyd, whose own roots are in the Labour party, said he was grateful for the votes Labour supporters might bring.

The Tory response is to stress the other side of the equation. "The question that matters in this is election is whether people want five more years of Gordon Brown or David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats do not feature in that," said Waterson. He criticised Lloyd's campaign as "particularly nasty and personal" and warned it could backfire.

But if the question for the Lib Dems in affluent towns in the south-west is how to persuade Labour supporters to back their assault on a Tory incumbent, how can it challenge Labour in some of the most deprived wards in the country? Does it cynically change its message to boost its chance of election?

Bradford East is another seat the Lib Dems are desperate to secure – this time by seizing it from the Labour MP, Terry Rooney. In 2005 it wasn't a target. The candidate, David Ward, remembers the "battle bus" flying straight past his office on its way to Leeds North West. "But this time it will stop," he said. "The party is relentless with target seats."

Ward's constituency was added to the list two years ago and since then central office has demanded monthly updates about the number of leaflets and letters dispatched and doorsteps trodden. Clegg has already visited a number of times.

Ward drove his car around the constituency to demonstrate its diversity. He passed through the attractive cottages at the northern tip, before turning in to one of the most deprived estates in the country. Some of the houses lay deserted with huge metal plates hauled up over windows and doors. At others the gates had fallen off their hinges.

The estates gave way to Bradford Moor, where shops such as Sana Fabrics, Ahmed Foods, Nangla Furniture and Akbar's lined the streets. In Bradford East half the children were on free school meals, there were five big working-class estates and in the poorest ward a child was five more times likely to die than in Ilkley, an affluent spa town outside the city, said Jeanette Sunderland, the leader of the Lib Dems on the local council and Ward's campaign manager.

Sitting back into her chair in the campaign headquarters, she flung her hand up towards a map of the sausage-shaped constituency, colour-coded by deprivation. "That means poverty," she said, sweeping her hand over the lower half of the map, which was red. "And no one lives up there," she said, pointing to the smaller area of blue.

Behind Sunderland stood a flip chart on which were written four key policies for the Lib Dems. "We take the complex national messages and we explain why they matter to you in Bradford East," she said. "The £10,000 personal income tax allowance will benefit everyone, while the mansion tax on homes worth more than £2m will hit no one. There are no millionaires in this constituency. There isn't a house worth £1m, never mind £2m. And the pupil premium to target the most deprived school students will bring in £12m."

Here too, leaflets are being printed in the thousands. And it is an example of another way that the Lib Dems target areas – starting with a council seat, then another, until they have a ward, then two, then more. Finally, as is now the case in Bradford East, they throw all their energy into securing an MP.

Here too there is leaflet after leaflet reminding voters that there is one party that can't win: this time, it's the Tories.

Both Sunderland and Ward rejected the claim that the Lib Dems changed their message to suit the town. Sunderland said it was about talking about the parts of the message that were relevant . "In Little Horton ward in Bradford there is no point talking about tax – most are on benefits," she said. Electoral reform was a non-issue in Bradford, especially for families where the decision was whether to eat or warm their houses.

Ward claimed disillusionment was rife in Bradford East. To prove his point promised that the first person he asked would not know the name of their local MP. He was right. "I haven't got a clue," she said in a strong local accent, laughing. Mubarak Khan, a 42-year-old taxi driver, said he had always backed Labour but now wouldn't bother voting at all. "They promise and don't deliver – on education, health, transport, even policing. I won't be voting."

Everyone but the rich is outraged by the financiers' billowing wealth. At the budget, Labour can tip the balance back to the people

The budget is 10 days away and yet already the chief secretary, Liam Byrne, appears to have ruled out any new tax rises to deal with the deficit. That is a deeply alarming prospect – and as a political stand, a blunder. If the election squeezes out any honesty about the cuts to come soon, then voters need to know the choices. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns the likely cuts will wipe out virtually all the extra spending of the Labour era – an unimaginable blow. Unless taxes rise to mitigate that disaster. Whether or not Byrne really meant it, why was he pretending tax rises were off the agenda?

Last week Gordon Brown warned of "bumps in the road" ahead. The man who denied the looming crunch doesn't say such things lightly. Economists warn that Britain is wobbling on a tightrope over a second recession where spending cuts would precipitate more unemployment and risk sinking the economy into a downward spiral. Mortgage lending figures just plunged, house prices are predicted to fall and export and manufacturing figures were dreadful. Growth figures for this year's first quarter may have fallen backwards – and they will emerge two weeks before election day. Blame the January snow for lack of shopping – but the outlook could be grim.

The chancellor should be listening to the group of 80 MPs and economists calling for another fiscal stimulus to keep the economy afloat: Britain is one of only two G20 countries withdrawing the stimulus this year. To invest in housing, transport and clean energy with growth and jobs is the Rooseveltian way out of recession and debt. The cabinet debates how to use a windfall from the bank bonus tax and lower than expected unemployment. With an abyss gaping below, of course it must be put back into investment. And this is no time to rule out tax rises.

So far Labour has failed to find the words to express public outrage at the financiers' billowing wealth while the Treasury is drained. Only weeks since launching, the campaign for a Robin Hood tax on all financial transactions has gathered extraordinary support. It hasn't been hard, so profound is the untapped public anger at the bankers. This week the European parliament voted for it overwhelmingly – 536 to 80 – supported by the social democrats and the majority conservative EPP grouping: opponents were the ECP rump rightwingers the Tories belong to. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel support it. Vince Cable will put it into the Lib Dem manifesto. Gordon Brown supports it but, as ever, he wants US support, which is unlikely. Backed here by some 100 organisations from Oxfam to the Salvation Army, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University came to London this week to promote the tax, urging the EU to go it alone.

Rarely has a campaign gathered such momentum in so short a time: 140,000 have joined and more gather by the day, besieging MPs (RobinHoodtax.org.uk). In this budget, campaigners want a sterling transaction tax, to come in at once. Imposing just 0.005% on every sterling deal is within Britain's sole control, raising £4bn. If the EU agrees a wider financial transactions tax, it would bring Britain another £4bn – one estimate is £100bn across Europe, to be used at home, in foreign aid and on climate change.

Money must be raised, but deficit panic has become a tulip mania in reverse, a group-think stoked up by those with a strong interest in no change. Frighteners about loss of credit rating are absurd: British debt is borrowed long, without need to refinance for some 12 years, and interest rates are low. But the Conservative's City friends are good at scaring the public about imminent bankruptcy and they lean hard on the Treasury. Look at the budget demands of the Institute of Directors: cut public spending by 35%, (but ringfence cash for roads, rail and airports). Cut corporation tax on companies to 15%, reverse national insurance and 50p tax rises and cut the protections for agency workers. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer – so who are the real class warriors?

Labour has failed to cash in politically on public fury at the rich who brazenly resist fair tax. HSBC's information has been stolen on 24,000 private accounts in Switzerland and now it frantically assures clients the contents won't reach tax authorities: HMRC hopes it does, but where is the Labour tub-thumping? Swiss and Liechtenstein bank doors are jemmied open by theft, but why does the EU tolerate any tax haven secrecy? General De Gaulle sent troops to surround Monaco over hiding tax fraud, and cut off its water: they relented. Meanwhile "respectable" consultants with government contracts advise top earners on avoiding the 50p tax rate by describing income as capital gains, or giving interest-free loans to be written off once the Tories get in and the tax is cut. PricewaterhouseCoopers tells the Financial Times it recommends paying dividends out before 1 April – their corporate social responsibility boasts somewhat at odds with denying cash to the state at a time of national emergency.

Where is the shame? The threat is that top people will flee to tax havens, but HMRC has finally toughened rules for residency. Do the rich relish the life of Guy Hands, the private equity head of Terra Firma who loves his money more than his school-age children and parents he can no longer visit from his Guernsey refuge, avoiding that 50p?

What we face here, which Labour has yet to find words to express, is a war between those who control the money sucked up into their own pockets, against the great majority who are the losers. This is the tidal pull of inequality that Labour tried and failed to swim against. This budget is the time to tip the balance on reward and tax towards the people. The reason the Robin Hood campaign is galloping forward so fast is that everyone but the rich wants that tide reversed. This is a totemic tax: many others are needed too.

The budget should lay out the facts – the country is still in great economic peril. If the deficit were paid off by cuts alone, that means a cut of 17% in every department except schools and aid – unthinkable and unnecessary. Money must be raised: it would be a positive social good to raise it from those still making fortunes out of easy processing and skimming of our money in these hard times. Put the case to the voters and see what they think. Labour has little to fear on this. If this is class war, the other side declared it – so let's fight it.

]]> http://www.businessgaze.com/bring-on-the-robin-hood-tax-polly-toynbee/feed 0 http://www.businessgaze.com/gordon-brown-misses-his-rosebud-moment-as-publisher-shelves-study http://www.businessgaze.com/gordon-brown-misses-his-rosebud-moment-as-publisher-shelves-study#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:00:00 +0000 Allegra Stratton http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/13/gordon-brown-publisher-shelves-book

Suzie Mackenzie shadowed PM for most of his period in No 10 but believed her book should also cover election

An in-depth and intimate study of Gordon Brown during the past two and a half years was this week shelved by its publishers, Bloomsbury.

After shadowing the prime minister for most of his period in No 10, the journalist Suzie Mackenzie told the publishers this week she would not be handing in the manuscript to meet their March deadline and Bloomsbury terminated the lucrative contract.

Mackenzie had been due to publish before the general election, but she said she had always told the publishers she believed the book should include time spent with the prime minister during this year's election.

Mackenzie told the Guardian: "I had said all along I didn't think it should be published before June because the book should include the election and that's what happened. That deadline just didn't feel right. No 10 staff were always extremely helpful."

A No 10 aide, alluding to the childhood sledge which was key to Citizen Kane's character, said: "It is very sad. We know she had extraordinary material. Really good stuff about his mother and father and maybe a 'Rosebud' moment."

Mackenzie was picked by Downing Street to write the book after writing an interview with Brown for the Guardian in 2004, which they felt was an accurate representation of his character. She was afforded intimate access and travelled with the prime minister through all the tribulations of his premiership, including the negotiations in the run up to the G20 summit and as world leaders grappled with the economic downturn.

In their spring catalogue the publishers said Mackenzie's work was going to be the most "definitive" account of the prime minister.

"Mackenzie does not aim to judge his success as prime minister – or, not only that. Instead she produces an extraordinary , multi-faceted portrait of the growth – political, intellectual, psychological – of Britain's most intriguing politician."

After Mackenzie indicated she was not going to be able to meet the March deadline, Bloomsbury were said to be further concerned when her material appeared to have been plundered by the publication of Andrew Rawnsley's book, The End of the Party, and the prime minister appearing on Piers Morgan's ITV chat show.

Downing Street has already been in touch with Mackenzie to ask what she intends to do with the material and she is reported to have said she has no plans until after the election.

Two weeks ago Mackenzie went public with a recording of Brown's foreign policy adviser Stewart Wood, which supported Rawnsley's allegation – at that time being rubbished by Downing Street – that Brown intimidated staff. Mackenzie's recording featured Wood saying Brown has once pushed him aside on the stairs inside No 10.

Nick Clegg may not like to talk of hung parliaments, but he must show voters how his party would operate in one

The Liberal Democrats are discovering the perks and perils of being of interest to others. A party with much to say, and normally no one to say it to, now has everyone's attention, but no simple answer to the one question it keeps being asked. What, people want to know, would Nick Clegg do in a hung parliament? He can respond until he goes blue or red in the face that the question cannot be answered until the nation has voted, and add that all he wants to do is maximise Lib Dem support and the number of his party's MPs, but that will not stop journalists badgering him for specifics.

The media's quinquennial interest in the possibility of hung parliaments irritates Lib Dems. They want to talk about their policies and their liberal ideology, not post-election deal-making which may never take place. They do not – unlike many commentators and some voters – define their party in relation to its two rivals. "Neither left nor right but somewhere in between," the Paddy Ashdown puppet on Spitting Image used to chant to mockery, but Lib Dems have always thought of themselves as somewhere out in front, away from both the other parties: speaking radical language on redistributive tax cuts, decentralised public services and a rebalanced economy.

Yet they will not escape easily from a trap: the more likely a hung parliament looks, the more voters will want to know what sort of government it might produce and the harder Lib Dems may find it to answer the question. In today's Guardian interview, Mr Clegg says his party would want to be "a radicalising, rather than moderating force" – which he could do from outside government as well as inside it. He tries to tone down the Spectator magazine's description of him (after another interview this week) as a fan of Margaret Thatcher by accusing her of "wreaking huge social destruction". He attacks both bankers and unions. He has harsh words for the Conservatives. He distances his party from Tory education policy, which at first glance seems to be an adjusted version of plans also being put forward by the Lib Dems. But his toughest language is reserved for Gordon Brown. "This is the man who wrought the damage, he should not be the person to do the repair work," he says. He does not sound like a man expecting – or even able – to work with the current prime minister after the election.

Up to a point, this is just necessary pre-election rhetoric. The Lib Dems did well in 1997 by associating themselves with Labour's call for national renewal. Now they need to dissociate themselves from Labour to avoid being sucked down with what may prove to be a sinking ship. After the election things might be different. "Constitutional niceties will be swept aside if it's obvious that there's one party that enjoys a mandate if not an actual majority from the British people," he says. "I don't think there will be a photo finish." But as Mr Clegg prepares to speak at his spring conference tomorrow it is not unreasonable to ask which way his thoughts are running, just as the same question should be put to Labour and the Conservatives.

Ahead of the election, he is right to leave his options open, and right to say that voters will shape the circumstances, not politicians. The party is an independent and strong force, and should be treated as such. Its manifesto will be in many ways the most attractive on offer. It would be a shame if the party found itself losing support during the campaign as voters come to fear the consequences of an inconclusive election. At the very least the Lib Dems need to say that they would respect the will of voters and put stability first. For all the excited talk of coalitions, it likely that a hung parliament would lead to minority government by the largest party with some degree of outside support from the Lib Dems. Mr Clegg has at times come close to saying as much. But for as long as he leaves more room to manoeuvre, people will keep asking him where it might lead him.

Wife of Conservative leader David Cameron steps out of the shadows and firmly into the spotlight

Her buzz words are obvious: "strong" and "reliable"; "passion" and "drive".

Sprinkle in the references to his being "incredibly funny and really interesting and clever", too, and Samantha Cameron's election-honed lexicon is near perfect for getting those boxes ticked for her husband on polling day. Which, presumably, is the purpose behind this, her first ever television interview.

The wife of the Conservative leader David Cameron steps out of the shadows and firmly into the spotlight tomorrow night when she is grilled – well, gently sautéed – by ITV's Trevor McDonald about life with "Dave", the would-be prime minister.

On their first meeting: "It was a sort of holiday romance". On her attraction to him: "He was quite different from any of my friends".

On "Dave" the husband: "He's definitely not perfect and like any husband he has lots of very irritating habits."

And on his prime-ministerial ambitions: "So much of the Dave that I first met and fell in love with is Dave the politician. ".

After Gordon Brown's highly personal interview with Piers Morgan last month, Conservative Central Office will be anxiously monitoring reaction to Mrs Cameron's performance, particularly now that the papers have branded her "SamCam".

Could Cameron's good-looking 38-year-old wife even depose the formidable and accomplished "tweeting" PR, Sarah Brown, to become Britain's favourite political wife?

This interview is the first of some eight high-profile events to be conducted by Samantha Cameron. As David Cameron himself tells Sir Trevor: "I think you're about to see, in the election … probably a lot more of Samantha as the trail gets hotter."

She's his "secret weapon", so how is he going to deploy her?, questions Sir Trevor. "Well, she's one of those secret weapons that will have a pretty clear view of how she wants to be deployed," replies Cameron.

Of aristocratic heritage, a high-powered businesswoman in her own right, and a working mother – Ivan, the first of their three children and who suffered from severe epilepsy and cerebral palsy, died aged six in February last year – she has hitherto steered clear of such direct politicking. But that all changed with Sir Trevor.

Just as Sarah Brown has humanised Gordon as "my husband, my hero", Samantha's interview serves to flesh out Dave, the man.

"I'd say one of the brilliant things about him is he loves cooking. But he, you know, he makes a terrible mess," she says.

"He is not very good at clearing up as he goes along. He is not very good at picking up his clothes. He's a terrible channel flicker. I have to be quite firm about him not fiddling with his phone and his BlackBerry too much, 'cos it can be, you know, quite annoying."

She continues: "He's a fantastic dad. [The children], they really make him laugh." She gives insight, too, into their work-life balance, he as party leader and she as creative director of the upmarket luxury goods firm Smythsons, as they split their busy lives between homes in north Kensington and Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.

"We do have very different jobs … But we talk a lot at home. His job is fascinating … when he comes home for supper, there's always lots to talk about."

The couple have been together 18 years, meeting through Cameron's younger sister Clare, a close friend of Samantha's and who invited her to join them on a family holiday in 1992.

At the time, Samantha, the upper-class bohemian daughter of the Lincolnshire landowner Sir Reginald Sheffield, and a descendent of Nell Gwyn, was studying art at Bristol Polytechnic, and hanging out and shooting pool with musician friends.

Cameron was based in London and working as a special adviser to Norman Lamont, who was the Conservative chancellor at the time. She was 21 and he was 25.

"He was quite different from any of my friends and anyone who I'd sort of met before," she says. "And I found him really fascinating. He had a very serious job, but he was, you know, he was incredibly funny and really interesting and clever, and we just got on really, really well from day one."

Two years later they were engaged. "I was very young when we got engaged. I was only 23. But I think I felt fairly confident that … Dave was the one for me for, for lots of reasons. He's a very strong kind of reliable person."

On his decision to enter the leadership contest for the Conservatives, she said: "I was very encouraging. It's a big commitment. But I really felt he was right for the job. I thought he had the right views, he had the passion and the drive."

Acknowledging that their life together has not been without tragedy, she says: "We've been through some fairly tough times – and I can honestly say that I don't think in all that time he's ever let me down. And he's always been incredibly strong, and kind and supportive."

Now it is her turn to be publicly supportive. "If he did become prime minister I would be incredibly proud of him. And, and our life would change – and that is daunting – I'm sure we would have to make sacrifices.

"But for me personally it would be a huge honour to do everything that I possibly could to support him and make sure that he could do the job to the very best of his abilities."

Analysis
Soft soap, and other handy hubby hints

It's stretching it a bit, isn't it? You look at David Cameron, someone tells you that he's not very good at clearing up as he goes along, and that's the most annoying thing about him.

I mean, sure, I bet he doesn't do a lot of washing up. If she'd said: "He has this insufferable sense of entitlement, which extends to a high-handed failure in all aspects of domesticity," I would buy that more, even thought it would effectively mean the same thing.

This, though, it doesn't even sound that personal. It sounds like she's flicked through Take-A-Break, put together a compendium of innocuous things women say about men, chosen the most innocuous and ta-da! Here he is, a three-dimensional human being, not-very-convincing-wart and all!

Sarah Brown, meanwhile, said on Mumsnet last month: "I am protective of our big family Sunday lunches round the table. No exceptions made, no football for DH [darling husband] or Moshi Monsters for the boys!"

Sure, because that's exactly what he looks like. A man who has to be torn away to the table, because otherwise he'd be yelling at the telly. Anything you'd like to add to this picture? Perhaps he's in his underpants, drinking a stubby? Or is that Homer Simpson? Sorry, ladies, but this is all so unlikely.

Michelle Obama set this scene. Under the cover of the critiquing her spouse, she exclusively revealed he has no fashion sense; he sometimes makes annoying remarks; and on occasion, this tendency and the ignorance coincide, exploding like potassium permanganate in an annoying remark about her wardrobe. The formula became: don't say he's perfect. That sounds a bit Stepford Wife and will damage your credibility, and not just as first lady. But likewise, don't say anything that might be meaningfully true. Where do you think you are, Relate? This is the campaign trial.

It's an absolute knife-edge between something that sounds like a believable aspect of a human being, but could be used against him by an opponent ("a bit flaky"; "tiny penis") and something so saccharine they might as well have left first lady at home.

Personally, I think Sam Cam fell off this particular knife (she doesn't even call her husband straightforwardly messy! He's messy while he's cooking. Even when he bad, ladies and gentlemen, he good). Better luck next knife.

Zoe Williams

Trevor McDonald meets David Cameron on ITV1, Sunday 14 March at 10.15pm

In light of the articles by Simon Jenkins (The bankers lied. And Darling, merely a puppet on their string, knows it, 12 March) and Mehdi Hasan (It's defeatist nonsense to talk of a crisis of leftwing thinking, 12 March), it seems evident that there is the need for a rearticulating of the political discourse. The hegemony of neoliberal thinking has defined the political space for 30 years, so much so that even in the present crisis, when we all should be marching on the streets against the bankers, New Labour is still running in fear of framing the debate in social democratic terms.

For the 30 years the right have had a stranglehold on how we define freedom. The political classes have been fearful of any reference to the state as a means of solving problems. Individual freedom, essentially defined in terms of freedom from the state, has been their mantra. For example, George Osborne's first reaction to the nationalisation of the banks was to jump enthusiastically up and down, claiming that old socialist nationalisation is here again. Cameron is careful that his slogan that there is such a thing as society is followed up by a clear rejection of any idea that this means a bigger state.

The current crisis has left both parties searching for ways to rearticulate a progressive politics, but it is up to the left to grab this opportunity, because they won't have another like this, to reshape the political discourse and redefine the state and its relation to individual freedom. This is a hegemonic struggle to reclaim the terms of liberty and equality in social democratic terms.

Robert Proni

London

• Donald Hirsch is quite right to say that decent employers should pay a living wage of at least £7.14 an hour, and more in expensive areas (The wages of dignity, 10 March). However, we also need to realise that the legal minimum wage of £5.80 an hour is not being paid to many thousands of employees. The root of the problem is that the statutory enforcement powers are held by Revenue & Customs, and they are failing to do their job properly. That is hardly surprising as there are only 123 enforcement staff for the whole of the UK.

In Hackney, where I live, only 258 investigations have been carried out in seven years. Anecdotal evidence of illegal avoidance abounds, but the onus is on the individual to complain, and few feel able to do so. Ideally the enforcement powers should be transferred to local authorities, but in the meantime high-profile awareness campaigns could be organised by councils with advice and information points located in their buildings. This policy will be part of the Hackney Labour manifesto for the forthcoming local elections.

Tim Webb

London

• Neil Kinnock (Letters, 10 March) utterly fails to comprehend the burning sense of disillusionment that has driven so many former Labour supporters either into cynical abandonment of politics or, like John Kampfner, to embrace the Lib Dems. The charge against the New Labour project is not that it did not deliver the benefits he lists. It did, and there were others which curiously he omits, above all the lancing of the Northern Ireland carbuncle and significant constitutional reforms – devolution and human rights legislation. The charge is that it squandered its massive parliamentary majorities and the goodwill that the electorate bestowed on it to transform a divided, sick society.

On the contrary, it took to its bosom the neoliberal ideology that nourished that divide, extending privatisation; it renounced and even demonised public sector initiatives and went back on the welfare state concordat that was the hallmark of the postwar Labour settlement. So, Labour administrations have presided over the widest gulf ever between the haves and have-nots and now the inevitable massive recession. We have witnessed a generation of politicians intent on feathering their own nests, the expenses "scandal" being a minor part of this. Not to speak, as Neil Kinnock dare not, of the criminal adventure that was the Iraq war. I, a onetime Labour activist, like John Kampfner, have joined the Lib Dems, who I see as a catalyst for, and working partner of, a rejuvenated Labour party once it is purged of the New Labour virus.

Benedict Birnberg

London

]]> http://www.businessgaze.com/letters-fear-and-loathing-in-new-labour/feed 0 http://www.businessgaze.com/malcolm-tuckers-election-briefing http://www.businessgaze.com/malcolm-tuckers-election-briefing#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:00:01 +0000 Malcolm Tucker http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/12/malcolm-tucker-election-briefing

They know the Tories are dipping. But we are still losing. We are not winning. I don't think I can stress this enough

So, coming back to the field of screams, the chamber of dipshits, I have to say, the atmosphere has certainly picked up. Last time I came in for a coffee the only sound was the soft shuffle of herds of wonks heading to the stationery cupboards to talk to corporate headhunters. The head of European policy was emailing Pret about their management training program. Most of the strategy unit were occupied with putting government property on eBay, and the foreign policy team were writing sexual slurs about Samantha Cameron on the undersides of their desks in permanent marker.

Now it's a hive of activity. There's a sense of hope. Your lads are handing round wedges of polling data like they're porno mags on an 80s school trip to the Sellafield visitor's centre. Someone's plugged a Glade air freshener in, and to be honest it makes me want to hurl. It's morning in America.

But as I see it there are two big hairy problem teenagers locked in the cellar threatening to break out:

1. Your people have no single fucking clue what in the wide wide world of field hockey is going on with the British electorate or why.

They know the Tories are dipping. But ask them why, and they smile a First-in-PPE-at-Arsepipe-College smile and say that "maybe it turns out people like a bully?". Bollocks. If people liked a bully I'd be drowning in Moët and John Lewis vouchers and sex texts. I am not. I don't know what's going on either, but I tell you what, we need more of a strategy than to say, "Ooo, winter's over in Narnia, let's watch the crocuses push up, and the rabbits hump and we can relax and put up our World Cup wallcharts."

2. We are still losing.

We are not winning. I don't think I can stress this enough. No poll puts us ahead. None. I suggest you shout that in the face of every little policy wang who bounces into the war room looking perky. When we're seven points ahead, that's when we start smiling and breaking out the baby oil and Curly Wurlys.

Now, as we know, the various polling organisations use different methodology. Mori and Populus phone people, YouGov use an internet panel, and I believe some of the cheaper outfits prefer throwing a spanner in the street and then getting the lunk it takes out to put his finger on one of three colours when he wakes up in casualty. As you know, I prefer to conduct my own polling by the means of ripping chickens apart, and reading the tea leaves I have force-fed them. And what this is telling me is that however well we think we're doing, we are currently located midway up shit creek, in the vicinity of the hamlet of Nofuckingpaddles.

So what do we do? In my view, as DC gets ready to roll out SamCam in a bid to appear not to be the lardy-cheeked plum sucker the entire nation instinctively knows he is, the big angle we need to hit this week is: TORY NUTTERS!

We've got a clear story to tell on this. They're in bed with the Ulster Unionists. And I think this is a good week to not unfairly characterise these guys as beardy weirdy, bollocks-in-the-mangle old-time-religion, one-step-from-Waco fruitcakes.

Then we have the Young Britons' Foundation. As we know, the links between these bright young blitzkriegers and Conservative Future are stronger than the bond between Charlie Clarke and his takeaway menu. We need to push this. Any hint of the old "hang Mandela" T-shirt vibe would be great for us, so you want the research team not leaving their desks, fed moulinexed Diet Coke and Subway sandwiches through intravenous tubes till they hit pay dirt. Anything will do. Feed it all in – even Young Tories voicing reservations about the narrative structure of the third act of Invictus. It can all hurt.

Finally there is Ashcroft. Here the line is simple. Ashcroft. Millionaire. Belize. In the public's mind we want them to be thinking: Bond villain who's made his money out of sex chatlines and child-labour landmines. Bish bash bosh.

Until next week. Regards. Malcolm.

Lib Dem leader condemns bankers as 'Scargills in pinstripes' and says electorate, not him, will decide who is next PM

Nick Clegg is to call for a 10% tax on bank profits to fund a £2bn job creation programme to rescue victims of the recession.

In a Guardian interview, the Liberal Democrat leader condemned bankers for behaving like ''Arthur Scargill in pinstripes'', and vowed his party would be "a radicalising, rather than moderating force" in the event of a hung parliament so long as the majority party was committed to bring the deficit under control.

On the eve of his party's pre-election spring conference, he insisted he will consult his party fully before joining a coalition or supporting a Queen's speech tabled by a minority government.

Clegg insisted it is not for him, but for the electorate to decide whether David Cameron or Gordon Brown becomes prime minister. However, he also attacked Brown in contemptuous terms: "It's very difficult to invest much hope or faith in a man who could not even maintain relations with his own colleagues".

He said Brown was not a credible figure to rebuild the economy. "This is the man who wrought the damage, he should not be the person to do the repair work".

Brown's late conversion to electoral reform was "hardly a hallelujah moment". He added: "There is no point anyone clinging to power when it's obvious the British people don't want you ... they'd prefer someone else.

"That's where constitutional nicety bumps up against political reality. It's not for me to decide. We give the electorate the cards, they deal them".

Clegg said he remained, on balance, "a huge critic" of Margaret Thatcher, but admitted Britain needs to rediscover the zeal she showed when she tackled the unions.

The banks, he said, have now become Britain's great contemporary vested interest. He said: "Bankers are Scargill in pin stripes. Scargill's stated aim was to challenge who runs the country. The bankers have behaved in the same arrogant way ... to benefit only themselves ...

"The banks have basically been given untrammelled support by both Labour and Conservative governments to do exactly what they like, and take massive risks with our livelihoods and savings.

"They have been holding a gun to the economy. A progressive liberal like myself is not going to be squeamish about blowing the whistle on a vested interest."

In the only tax rise proposed by his party, he now backs a 10% tax on bank profits, a break up of the banks' investment and retail arms, and finally a requirement on banks owned by the taxpayers – RBS and Lloyds – to be required to behave in the public interest on issues such as take-overs of UK firms.

He also proposes tighter requirements on banks to lend. "What I hear from the Conservatives is ... 'we've got to wait for the rest of the world'. I really don't think the Tories get how much we're skating on thin ice as an economy.

"If we don't take on this vested interest ourselves, now, unilaterally, immediately, we're asking for trouble. The liabilities of British banks are now four and a half times the size of the British economy. We are like a large version of Iceland. We are not sheltered in any way".

In his interview Clegg also:

• dismisses Tory plans to open new schools and rejects profit-making firms opening new schools. "I keep reading that we and the Tories have identical policies on schools but it's complete rubbish."

• insists he will not ringfence the NHS from cuts. He said: "We need to make significant savings to safeguard the GP surgery or A&E or the maternity ward".

• promises "to slash the headcount of the Department of Children".

He tried to defuse the issue of whether he would back Cameron or Brown in a hung parliament saying: "I think these constitutional niceties will be swept aside if it's obvious that there's one party that enjoys a mandate, if not an actual majority. I don't think there will be a photo finish."

]]> http://www.businessgaze.com/nick-clegg-calls-for-10-bank-tax-to-rescue-recession-victims/feed 0 http://www.businessgaze.com/nick-clegg-calls-for-10-bank-tax-to-rescue-recession-victims http://www.businessgaze.com/nick-clegg-calls-for-10-bank-tax-to-rescue-recession-victims#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:36:50 +0000 Patrick Wintour, Allegra Stratton http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/12/nick-clegg-bank-tax-recession-lib-dems

Lib Dem leader condemns bankers as 'Scargills in pinstripes' and says electorate, not him, will decide who is next PM

Nick Clegg is to call for a 10% tax on bank profits to fund a £2bn job creation programme to rescue victims of the recession.

In a Guardian interview, the Liberal Democrat leader condemned bankers for behaving like ''Arthur Scargill in pinstripes'', and vowed his party would be "a radicalising, rather than moderating force" in the event of a hung parliament so long as the majority party was committed to bring the deficit under control.

On the eve of his party's pre-election spring conference, he insisted he will consult his party fully before joining a coalition or supporting a Queen's speech tabled by a minority government.

Clegg insisted it is not for him, but for the electorate to decide whether David Cameron or Gordon Brown becomes prime minister. However, he also attacked Brown in contemptuous terms: "It's very difficult to invest much hope or faith in a man who could not even maintain relations with his own colleagues".

He said Brown was not a credible figure to rebuild the economy. "This is the man who wrought the damage, he should not be the person to do the repair work".

Brown's late conversion to electoral reform was "hardly a hallelujah moment". He added: "There is no point anyone clinging to power when it's obvious the British people don't want you ... they'd prefer someone else.

"That's where constitutional nicety bumps up against political reality. It's not for me to decide. We give the electorate the cards, they deal them".

Clegg said he remained, on balance, "a huge critic" of Margaret Thatcher, but admitted Britain needs to rediscover the zeal she showed when she tackled the unions.

The banks, he said, have now become Britain's great contemporary vested interest. He said: "Bankers are Scargill in pin stripes. Scargill's stated aim was to challenge who runs the country. The bankers have behaved in the same arrogant way ... to benefit only themselves ...

"The banks have basically been given untrammelled support by both Labour and Conservative governments to do exactly what they like, and take massive risks with our livelihoods and savings.

"They have been holding a gun to the economy. A progressive liberal like myself is not going to be squeamish about blowing the whistle on a vested interest."

In the only tax rise proposed by his party, he now backs a 10% tax on bank profits, a break up of the banks' investment and retail arms, and finally a requirement on banks owned by the taxpayers – RBS and Lloyds – to be required to behave in the public interest on issues such as take-overs of UK firms.

He also proposes tighter requirements on banks to lend. "What I hear from the Conservatives is ... 'we've got to wait for the rest of the world'. I really don't think the Tories get how much we're skating on thin ice as an economy.

"If we don't take on this vested interest ourselves, now, unilaterally, immediately, we're asking for trouble. The liabilities of British banks are now four and a half times the size of the British economy. We are like a large version of Iceland. We are not sheltered in any way".

In his interview Clegg also:

• dismisses Tory plans to open new schools and rejects profit-making firms opening new schools. "I keep reading that we and the Tories have identical policies on schools but it's complete rubbish."

• insists he will not ringfence the NHS from cuts. He said: "We need to make significant savings to safeguard the GP surgery or A&E or the maternity ward".

• promises "to slash the headcount of the Department of Children".

He tried to defuse the issue of whether he would back Cameron or Brown in a hung parliament saying: "I think these constitutional niceties will be swept aside if it's obvious that there's one party that enjoys a mandate, if not an actual majority. I don't think there will be a photo finish."

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