News and Society

Sunday morning during party conference season is always a moment of news overload because all the papers have their own Lib Dem conference stories. Today is no exception, although the story that is leading the BBC news, the Mail on Sunday tax crackdown story is rather less impressive once you examine the small print. (See below.) Never mind. Here's my round up of the main Lib Dem stories around.

• Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, tells the Mail on Sunday that extra tax inspectors are being hired to ensure that people with homes worth more than £1m are paying what they owe.

Fellow Lib Dem Danny Alexander, the Treasury Chief Secretary, who was accused of benefiting from a tax loophole on second homes, told The Mail on Sunday that the Coalition is to launch a triple-pronged attack on the well-off designed to raise hundreds of millions of pounds.

Half a million people with property and assets worth over £1?million will come under extra scrutiny to make sure they are not cheating the taxman.The Government is to order new BBC Director General George Entwistle to stop its celebrities and executives using tax avoidance ploys.Soccer players and managers who dodge tax face fines of up to £100,000.

Lib Dem conference veterans may recognise this story. Last year he announced that more tax inspectors were being hired to target the rich. And the 2011 announcement was an extension of one that Alexander first unveiled at the Lib Dem conference in 2010. In 2010 Alexander said the Treasury would invest £900m so that HM Revenue & Customs could be "ruthless" with the wealthy "who think they can treat paying tax as an optional extra".

If you read the Mail on Sunday, you will see that people with homes worth more than £1m will not be required to pay a penny more in tax than they are already paying at the moment. But, in a report that has gone down very well with Alexander and his colleagues, I'm told, the Mail on Sunday is presenting his policy as a “mansion tax” imposed the back door.

• Vince Cable tells the Sunday Times (paywall) in an interview that he wants a crackdown on tax havens.

Vince Cable has signalled a new assault on tax havens and non-domiciled millionaires in a move that will put further distance between the coalition partners and appeal directly to Liberal Democrat activists gathering at the party conference in Brighton.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the business secretary demanded tough action against “shady” wealthy people who make “systematic and cynical” use of offshore havens such as Monaco and the Cayman Islands.

In the interview, Cable also refused to rule out standing for the Lib Dem leadership.

I have always said never say never. I am not remotely thinking of competing for Nick’s job. He will, I’m sure, remain as the leader and I am happily working with him but, as I say, never say never — who knows what will happen in the world.

• A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times (paywall) suggests that, if Cable were leader, the Lib Dem poll ratings could rise by up to 50%. That sounds dramatic, but it's an increase from a very low base. The latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times puts Labour on 43%, the Conservatives 34% and the Lib Dems 8%. With Cable as leader, the Lib Dems would get 12%, the poll says.

According to the Sunday Times, Clegg's personal approval ratings are “the worst of any party leader since Michael Foot at the depths of Labour's troubles in 1983”.

YouGov also asked people about Clegg's apology. Asked if it made him look stronger or weaker, 21% said stronger and 41% said weaker.

• The Independent on Sunday says Clegg has lost the support of Lib Dem members.

Nick Clegg has lost the confidence of Liberal Democrat members, a poll reveals for the first time today, as the Deputy Prime Minister attempts to persuade his party to stick with him for the "second half" of the coalition government.

A poll for Lib Dem Voice of paid-up party members, seen by The Independent on Sunday, shows that the Lib Dem leader's personal rating has fallen below zero for the first time, to minus 2 per cent.

The same poll put Mr Clegg on plus 13 per cent in August and plus 19 per cent in June. And an overwhelming majority – 79 per cent – of Lib Dem members think being in coalition will be bad for the party's election prospects in 2015.

• And the Sunday Telegraph also has a poll, showing Cable to be significantly more popular than Clegg.

The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph puts Mr Cable, who has not ruled himself out as a future leader, 11 points ahead of Mr Clegg among voters of all parties. Among Lib Dem supporters, Mr Cable’s lead is seven per cent.

• Ed Davey, the energy secretary, tells the Observer the anti-green sentiment in the Conservative party could cost Britain jobs.

Tens of billions of pounds of investment in low-carbon, job-creating energy infrastructure projects that are "ready to go" could be lost to Britain because of an anti-green movement that is sweeping through the Tory party, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary warns today.

In an interview with the Observer, Ed Davey describes a "Tea Party tendency" among Conservative MPs who question climate change and green investment as "perverse", and says it is creating deep uncertainty for an industry that could do much to help lift the country out of the economic doldrums.

• The Observer says that Richard Reeves, Clegg's former director of strategy, has said that the coalition's cuts have gone too far over the last two years.

Writing in a pamphlet to be launched on Sunday [Reeves] insists that the broad thrust of the government's deficit reduction plan is right and admits that the eurozone crisis is the major stumbling block. But he speaks of frustration at the mistakes the government has made, in what he concedes could be viewed as a "searing critique".

He writes: "Nobody knows for sure whether tightening at the pace set by the coalition government has choked off growth, or laid the foundations for recovery. For what it is worth, I think the coalition tightened a little more than necessary in the first two years; relied a bit too much on spending cuts rather than tax rises to fill the hole; and above all has taken a myopically conservative approach to borrowing for investment."

• Lynne Featherstone, the international development minister, tells the Independent on Sunday that the publication of page 3 girls encourages domestic violence.

Admitting she would be called "mean" and "sour-faced" by some people, Mrs Featherstone said: "There is a real argument about what is OK in the public space. If you are on the Tube you may find Page 3 is facing you and your young daughter and you may not want that to be a role model for her.

"There is an army on the other side hurtling abuse. It's not simply about equal pay. It's about the constant drip, drip of women being sexualised in the public space [which] has a great bearing on attitudes and domestic violence.

• Norman Baker tells the Sunday Express that vehicle tax will eventually be abolished.

Motorists were told to expect the biggest ever shake-up in transport policy last night after a minister predicted the abolition of vehicle tax, big cuts in fuel duties and a new system of road tolls for every mile travelled.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said a national system of road pricing was inevitable, adding: “Every government of every colour will get there, whatever parties say now.”

He explained that the drift towards electric and cleaner cars would force the Treasury to look at replacing the billions of pounds it is likely to lose through traditional carbon tax revenues.

• The Mail on Sunday says Ed Davey wants to be the next Lib Dem leader.

Nick Clegg faced a new leadership threat last night amid claims that a plot is being hatched against him by allies of Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister Ed Davey.

As the Lib Dem conference opened in Brighton yesterday, sources said the Energy Secretary was preparing his own challenge in the event of Clegg being brought down before the next Election.

They claimed Davey, a Right-winger, is convinced he can beat Left-leaning Vince Cable, who is the strong favourite to succeed Clegg.

And here are some of the best comment articles about the Lib Dems.

• John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday predicts that Cable will replace Clegg.

So Cameron still needs the Lib Dems. But he does not necessarily need Clegg. He, like the rest of us, must have watched incredulously as the Deputy Prime Minister decided that the way to deal with tuition fees, his most serious mistake, was to make a YouTube video about it before his party conference. He must have watched again, with redoubled incredulity, as the video, remixed to music, became a hit, magically softening the bitter edge of voter rage. But he knows that Clegg is still a liability not just for the Lib Dems but for the coalition, and no amount of computer-generated singing can turn him into an asset.

That is why the Vince Cable phenomenon is the story of this week's Lib Dem conference. Recent opinion polls, including today's from ComRes, suggest the party would do better if Clegg were replaced by the Business Secretary. Such findings are unusual: alternative leaders are rarely well-known enough. Yet, just now, two party leaders are stalked by more popular shadows: Vince and Boris. The only recent precedent was Gordon Brown: polls briefly suggested that Labour would do better with him as leader before the 2005 election.

• James Forsyth in the Mail on Sunday says Danny Alexander could lose out to David Laws in the struggle for control of the next Lib Dem manifesto.

Laws’s return has been particularly welcomed by those top Lib Dems, including former leaders, who feared that Clegg had become too dependent on Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Alexander is extremely loyal to his leader but there is a fear that he has ‘gone native’ in the Treasury and signs up to its analyses too unquestioningly.

In the coming months, there will be a behind-the-scenes push to ensure Laws is put in charge of drafting the party’s next election manifesto, not Alexander.

• Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer says there is a vacancy for the Lib Dems in British politics.

As the Lib Dems have discovered, it is a challenge sustaining a distinctive identity as the junior partner in a coalition. But in some ways, their rivals are helping them carve out some potential electoral niches. It is a long time since I heard David Cameron describe himself as a "liberal Tory". It is also a long time since he claimed that a government led by him would be "the greenest government ever". The shrivelling of liberal and green Toryism creates space for the Lib Dems to be clearly differentiated from their frenemies in the coalition.

And here's the agenda for the day.

9.15am: Debate on aviation.

9.30am: Nick Clegg is interviewed on the Andrew Marr show.

10.35am: Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, gives a speech.

10.55am: Debate on the environment.

11.40am: Debate on food.

12.20pm: Ed Davey, the energy secretary, gives a speech.

2.20pm: Debate on the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

3.05pm: Nick Clegg takes part in a Q&A.

3.50pm: Debate on disability.

4.40pm: Debate on medically assisted dying.

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