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Nick Clegg: Hammond should 'dump on' Cameron and Osborne
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Nick Clegg, whose political career was damaged by a U-turn on a manifesto commitment, has said the chancellor, Philip Hammond, needs to “dump on” David Cameron and George Osborne to save his reputation following the budget.
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Speaking in Brussels, Clegg said the chancellor’s decision to renege on a manifesto commitment by increasing national insurance contributions from the self-employed had been forced on him by the former administration.
In the run-up to the 2010 election, Cameron promised not to increase income tax, VAT or NICs. In the budget on Wednesday, however, Hammond increased the level of NICs for some people, claiming the former prime minister’s pledges on tax increases were “broad” and that “circumstances had changed”.
Clegg, whose political reputation never recovered from his party’s support for a rise in higher education tuition fees in contradiction to a Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge ahead of the general election, said: “This is a breach that is entirely of their own making.
“I didn’t win. I was completely between a rock and a hard place on [tuition fees]. The Labour party had introduced the damn things on their watch. It was the Conservative party that wanted to whack them up.
“But the Conservatives have created this storm entirely themselves, partly because of this ludicrous gimmick from George Osborne and David Cameron that ruled out the freedom to adjust taxes, so that left Philip Hammond no option but to scrabble around in the undergrowth.”
Clegg, who had breakfast at the Ivy in London with Cameron last week, said: “The honest thing to do for Phil Hammond – and knowing him it is what I suspect he would like to do – is to dump on his predecessors and say Osborne and Cameron were wrong.
“In what normal world does a government impose a fatwa in all circumstances on adjusting taxes in anticipation of economic events which you cannot anticipate? That would be the honest thing to say. What he has ended up with, at great cost to him, is a saving that is minuscule in public expenditure terms.”
Clegg declined to comment on his meeting with Cameron last week, but appeared to suggest that the two had met at the former prime minister’s instigation. “He chose the location,”, Clegg said. “I’m not going to talk about. It was just a private meeting.”
