News from Brent Labour

Brent Labour brands Clegg’s party the “Fib Dems” over broken promises

Voters have always been cynical about politicians who make extravagant promises only to renege on them a few months later but never in recorded history has a party betrayed every principle it ever stood for as the Liberal Democrats have done since May 6th.

Before the election, the Lib Dems supported Labour in not wishing to cut too fast too soon for fear of a double dip recession. Now they have supported the largest cuts package in the western world. Before the election they described Tory plans to increase VAT as a ’secret VAT bombshell’ but they have since voted to increase VAT to 20%. Before the election, they gave a commitment to universal child benefit but they have since supported scrapping child benefit for some middle income families but not others. For years, they promised to abolish tuition fees; indeed it was the subject of Sarah Teather’s maiden speech. Now they are in favour of doubling tuition fees. In March this year, Sarah Teather berated the Tories for planning to abolish subsidised rents for Council and housing association homes; now they support new council tenancies at 80% of market rents and the abolition of security of tenure for those tenants. During the election, the Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg described the alternative vote system (AV) as “a miserable little compromise”. By September he was saying that “AV is infinitely fairer than what we have at the moment”.

Brent Council’s Labour Leader, Councillor Ann M John, OBE has compiled a brief list of Lib Dem quotes made in the run up to the May election all of which have been comprehensively disavowed in the five months since the election.

Councillor John said: “The Fib Dems are the harlots of British politics. They will say anything and do anything to get into government. In less than six months they have betrayed every policy they fought the election on. They give all politicians a bad name”.

The list which is entitled ‘The Fib Dems in their own words’ is exclusively hyperlinked and available on Labour Matters.

Other news from Brent Labour

• Liberal Democrat councillors go AWOL in Brent - 23 January 2012
• Brent Labour condemns privatisation of 999 Control Room Function - 21 January 2012
• The "Fib Dems" in their own words - 21 October 2010