Derek Deedman

Is that all there is from Brown?
Yesterday afternoon we heard the first Queen’s Speech since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. After a lifetime spent preparing for the top job and a decade of waiting in No. 11, the Prime Minister felt the need to cancel the General Election because he wanted this opportunity to spell out his vision. There was great anticipation, but the anticlimax was deafening. The legislative programme outlined is firmly rooted in the Blair era. It is now clear that Gordon Brown lacks not only a personal mandate, but also ideas and vision of his own. It leaves us asking one question: is that all there is?

Tories and Labour agree on so much
In replying on behalf of the Liberal Democrats I made the point that across wide swathes of policy his approach is indistinguishable from the Tories’. Taken alongside previous announcements it is clear that Gordon Brown and David Cameron now agree on tax policy, accepting widening inequality, and retaining an unreformed council tax. Both are bidding for the anti-immigrant vote; both are pursuing short-sighted populist policies; both are intent on filling prisons with petty criminals and the mentally ill; both are promoting nuclear power and an unfettered airport expansion regardless of the environmental consequences; both are backing student top-up and tuition fees; and both are in the thrall of the Bush administration – notably on Iraq.

On all of those issues it is the Liberal Democrats who offer a distinctive voice.

We offer a real alternative
The Liberal Democrats alone will fight for improvements to the Climate Change Bill, with annual emissions targets by which to judge government progress. We alone will maintain our opposition to any irrational extension of the period of detention without charge from its current twenty-eight day limit, and we alone will continue to fight the introduction of the unwanted, unnecessary and expensive national identity card scheme.

We will also continue to put pressure on the government to hold a referendum on Britain’s future in the European Union. If the government were brave enough to join us in leading the campaign for a “yes” vote in an in-out ballot, we could draw the poison from the debate on Britain’s future in the EU, and end the eurosceptic argument that the British people have no say.

Over the course of this week the content of the Queen’s Speech will be debated on the floor of the House of Commons. The Liberal Democrats will take that opportunity to press the government on its legislative plans for the next twelve months.  We will support the government where we agree with it, and we will provide robust and principled opposition where we do not.

We alone can fill that role.

Vincent Cable MP
Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats