Tom Richmond: Hissy fits from Lib Dems who need to get real

I wouldn’t expect anything less – this is, after all, a Conservative-led government, with the Tories having 307 MPs while their junior partners have just 57.

Now hardly a day passes by without the Lib Dems trying to veto a David Cameron-led reform.

Clegg’s team need to be more realistic and acknowledge the advice of Peter Mandelson, Labour’s fixer-in-chief for so many years.

He made these telling observations the other day: “The coalition’s programme will hardly be advanced if every time a Tory minister floats ideas of reform, it draws an indignant riposte from a Lib Dem collegaue who feels left out of the discussion.”

Lord Mandelson went on to add “government by hissy fit is not the way to make good policy” before warning that the likely beneficiaries will be Labour rather than the Lib Dems.

This is particularly pertinent advice that Lib Dem strategists should have the maturity to note.

After their drubbing in the May election, Clegg and his Ministers have tried to be more outspoken – particularly on immigration. Yet, in doing so, they have perpetuated the belief that this is a government which is effectively treading water.

It should not be. When Clegg entered the coalition, he accepted that the economy would be its defining test – and that he hoped the country would reward the Tories and Lib Dems in 2015.

That remains the case. And that means the Lib Dems using their influence on economic matters – particularly the regeneration of the North – rather than believing, mistakenly, that their role is to solely fill air-time on the 24-hour TV news networks. In short, Clegg needs to spell out some home truths to the rogue elements within his back-room staff.

FROM an economic perspective, this region must have two priorities – jobs and transport.

Yet, while the Government is keen to accelerate the planning process, it must not lose sight of the need to develop a better transport infrastructure.

As the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) said this week, it is pretty pointless building a new business park on the outskirts of Leeds by the M1 if it is inaccessible for many workers.

CBT chief executive Stephen Joseph said: “No-one wants to be stuck in bank holiday-style traffic jams twice a day just to do a day’s work.

“We need to encourage new development, but not at any price and the expense of delays and congestion on transport networks needs to be fully considered when planning new developments.”

I agree. What is needed is clarity, when such schemes are approved, about the transport ramifications – and what services will be provided.

For, if this had happened in the past, Yorkshire’s infrastructure may be far more robust than it is today.

IT took 15 months for David Cameron to appoint a Minister to spreadhead the regeneration of England’s cities – a policy void that has been repeatedly highlighted by this newspaper.

Yet surely there was someone more able than Middlesbrough-raised Greg Clark, the MP for Tunbridge Wells in leafy Kent? Clark, for the record, is mired in a spat with the National Trust and CPRE over planning reform. He has now suggested that councils overcome housing difficulties by encouraging more people to live on boats.

What the cities require is a full-time Minister rather than the part-time attention of a politician who is all at sea over planning reform, and who inspires such little confidence.

ACCORDING to reports, Alistair Darling – the “Credit Crunch” Chancellor – uses his forthcoming book to accuse Gordon Brown, his then boss, of being “a brutal and volcanic” Prime Minister, and that Bank of England chief Mervyn King was “amazingly stubborn and exasperating”.

Neither assertion surprises me – the breakdown of the Darling-Brown axis, shortly after the latter became PM, was an open secret. What people will question is why Darling has only gone public now.

If Brown and King did not have the temperament to handle the global economic meltdown, and its ruinous consequences for the UK public finances, should not Darling have said so at the time – or was it his duty to shore up the Labour government until it was put out of its misery? Discuss.

PERHAPS best-selling author Frederick Forsyth has come up with the reason behind Downing Street’s passiveness: “All politicians are scared stiff of their civil servants.”

But I prefer Yorkshire artist David Hockney’s take on the current political classes: “Many people in England are fed up with the unthinking bossy-boots politicians who believe us to be infants.”

Well said.

DAVID Cameron said yesterday that “responsibility” is the most important word in the political language. Will he keep his word when the proverbial next hits the fan and his judgement is called into question?

It is an assertion, though well-meaning, that he may live to regret. We’ll soon see.

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