Over A Barrel

James Forsyth writes:

There are a few big Lib Dem policy wins in this Budget, most notably the rise in the personal allowance and the introduction of land auctions. But there are also a few bits of rather unseemly pork barrel politics. Nick Clegg’s Sheffield gets an enterprise zone, which is probably fair enough. But we are also told that ‘following a thorough review, the government is approving the revised Sheffield retail quarter regeneration scheme.’

The south west, which has a disproportionately large number of Lib Dem seats, gets help to keep water bills down. Remote areas of Britain, which is expected to include the constituency represented by the Lib Dem chief whip Alistair Carmichael and possibly parts of the constituency represented by the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, get a rebate on the price of fuel.

Precious stuff that wants to take the politics out of politics. It is not often that I say good on the Lib Dems, but good on the Lib Dems for looking after Sheffield (belatedly), the West Country, and the North of Scotland. Here in the North East, we had a County Durham MP as Prime Minister for many years, and when the credit crunch came, no one could tell, because we still had our boarded up shop fronts and such like from the Eighties. We had never stopped having them throughout the Blair years.

Yet such Labour Party members as there still are here (fewer than 10,000 from Middlesbrough to Berwick) were enjoined to vote for a Tyneside MP for Leader on the grounds that it would have been wonderful to have a Leader from the North East. Based on very recent experience, it would have been no such thing. As for David Miliband, for it was he, will he and any supporters that he still has show the courage of their Blairite convictions and either vote in favour of this Budget or seek to amend it so that it cuts significantly more than it does? If not, why not? After all, that is what they really want.