Danny Alexander believes some trade unions are “spoiling for a fight” over planned cuts The government does not want to pick a fight with the public sector as it cuts spending, a senior Lib Dem minister is to tell his party conference.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, will say he does not want to “take on” nurses, teachers and police over cuts, but “take them with us”.
Meanwhile, leader and deputy PM Nick Clegg has said he was impressed by the prime minister’s “flexibility”.
He told the Observer that decisions are taken jointly by him and David Cameron.
Amid concerns the party has been relegated to the role of junior partner in the coalition, Mr Clegg said of Mr Cameron: “He hasn’t been dogmatic. He hasn’t been doctrinaire.
“I think this government definitely has the capacity to be a great, great reforming government.”
He also told the newspaper he was wrong to call Mr Cameron a “fake” and a “con” during the election campaign.
The Lib Dems are meeting in Liverpool amid unease among some MPs and party members about their support for a £40bn reduction in public spending by 2015.
While the next few years will be “very tough”, Mr Alexander will say union opposition to budget cuts is wrong for the country.
Unions have pledged to resist what they say will be “savage” cutbacks.
“I know there are a minority in the trade unions who will deliberately misrepresent what this government stands for because they are spoiling for a fight.”
Danny Alexander Chief Secretary to the Treasury
As number two in the Treasury, Mr Alexander is responsible for negotiations with other ministers about the scale of departmental spending cuts due to be announced next month. Most departments have been asked to plan for cuts of between 25% and 40% over four years.
On the first full day of the Lib Dem conference, Mr Alexander will acknowledge concerns about the impact this will have on jobs and public services, but will make a plea to workers to recognise the need to take action to cut government borrowing to aid the recovery.
“I know that the next few years will be tough, very tough for some,” he will say.
“But I also believe that the changes we make – empowering you, trusting you, listening to you – will make the public services a more rewarding place to work.”
He will seek to counter the arguments of trade union leaders who vowed a co-ordinated campaign of industrial action last week and called for an alternative approach to support jobs.
“I know there are a minority in the trade unions who will deliberately misrepresent what this government stands for because they are spoiling for a fight,” he will add.
“Please don’t allow their political motivations to push you into doing the wrong thing for the country. We do not want to take you on. We want to take you with us.”
In a newspaper interview on Saturday, Mr Alexander hinted that cuts in welfare bills could be more far-reaching than already indicated.
Earlier this month, Chancellor George Osborne signalled he wanted to shave an extra £4bn from the welfare bill – on top of £11bn cuts made in June’s emergency Budget.
Telling the Scotsman that the coalition needed to look “searchingly” at welfare, Mr Alexander said a final figure had not been decided but it might not be limited to £4bn.
With spending cuts looming, Mr Clegg has acknowledged that the leadership could be in for a “rough ride” at the conference.
He told the Observer that the coalition can only work if his party accepts it is a full and willing participant that jointly “owns the government”.
The alternative, he said, was to operate in an atmosphere of “poison” as a competing faction “constantly trying to put little trophies on the mantelpiece to show we are winning victories”.
“In fact the truth is much more radical than that. All the big decisions are jointly taken by David Cameron and myself… that is why I didn’t want to have a department, why I am a hop and a skip from his office,” he told the Observer.
But Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband said Mr Clegg would be “punished” at the ballot box for aligning himself with the Conservatives.
“What the Lib Dems have supported in government bears little relation to what they promised before the election and no wonder people are feeling let down,” he said.
“Nick Clegg has taken the Lib Dems in a direction they may never recover from.”
An opinion poll published on Saturday suggested that more than half of people who voted Lib Dem at May’s election believed the party had “sold out” by joining a Conservative-led coalition.
According to a Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday poll, 40% of people who supported the Lib Dems would not have done so if they had known what the result would be.
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