Despite his PR officer’s best efforts the news has broken that Nick Clegg has returned from his luxurious summer holidays in Spain with his wife’s Miriam’s family suffering from trauma of the brain. This may have occurred while he lay on his private beach re-reading Dale Carnegie’s bestselling book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’
Evidence of his medical condition emerged as he began to utter verbal gibberish. Rehearsing for next month’s Liberal Democrat conference, when he will be fighting to keep his job, he said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper:
People of very considerable wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution
He concluded this section by referring to the ‘national effort’.
Mr. Clegg wants a new wealth tax:
If we want to remain cohesive and prosperous as a society, people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution
This new tax is in “a new unspecified form of wealth tax” but it’s not a mansion tax and not even the Liberal Democrats would propose increasing the upper rate of income tax.
There are no costings, no methodology, no risk assessment: it is utter nonsense.
Those members of the Coalition Government who are returning from the British Virgin Islands, where they have enjoyed five star accommodation and regular meetings with the managers of their off-shore trusts, are furious by this latest outburst.
“I thought Iain (Duncan Smith) was sorting out the crisis by stopping benefits” said one.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister, who has been pretending to be ‘with the people’ in Cornwall, has vetoed an idea from a group of Conservative backbenchers that the Party should return to their traditions of low taxation, wealth creation and fair distribution.
“What’s that to do with it?” he was heard to ask “And anyway the Notting Hill set would not like it.”
The Chancellor meantime is dealing with further grim economic news and is facing the threat of rising oil prices. The Iranian situation and the threat of a pre-November (US elections) invasion by Israel is pushing up costs while demand, even with the weak global economy, remains the same. The Americans are even wondering whether they will have to release some of their strategic reserves.
If Brent crude reaches $117.00/$118.00 the effect of the CPI in 2013 could be serious. It is difficult to imagine exactly what the Chancellor could do to combat rising inflation. Drop interest rates? More QE? It’s hard to call.
He could of course tax the rich….
The author is Tony Drury. He tweets @mrtonydrury
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