Simon Hughes: some Tories think they are born to rule

Posted on by
Reply

Lib Dem deputy leader says Tories must stick by coalition agreement and not act as if they had outright majority

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Simon Hughes, has accused Tories of acting as if they were “born to rule”.

In a further sign of tensions between the coalition partners, Hughes said Conservatives must stick by their agreements – including reform of the House of Lords.

Since last week’s drubbing for the coalition parties in the local government elections, Tory MPs have been lining up to demand changes in government policy, complaining the Lib Dems have too much influence.

However, Hughes said the Conservatives needed to remember that they failed to secure an overall majority at the general election and they needed Lib Dem support in order to form a government with a working majority.

“I know that Tories would have liked to have won the general election, but they didn’t. They didn’t get a majority and they haven’t had a majority for many elections,” he told BBC Radio 4′s The World at One.

“It may be uncomfortable for the Tories – some of whom think they are born to rule – but unfortunately the electorate didn’t agree with them.”

Hughes said it was important that both parties honoured the coalition agreement – including the commitment to a wholly or largely elected House of Lords, which many Tory MPs want dropped from Wednesday’s Queen’s speech.

“All three parties, including the Conservatives, stood on a manifesto of addressing the fact that the House of Lords is there entirely by patronage or by heredity,” he said.

“The Tory leadership is as signed up to that as the Labour leadership and our leadership, that we need to have a modern legislature.”

Hughes said also that the Conservatives only had themselves to blame for the unpopularity of the budget as they had demanded the cut in the 50p top rate of tax.

“It was probably more than anything the Conservative insistence on putting the reduction of the top tax rate into the budget which gave the budget a bad name,” he said.

“Instead of the really good message which we had argued should be the central core of the budget – which was to lift the tax threshold benefiting 25 million – that got lost and both parties paid a price for that.”

Simon HughesLiberal DemocratsConservativesLiberal-Conservative coalitionLocal elections 2012Local governmentLocal politicsLocal electionsHouse of LordsConstitutional reformguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


Read the full story and more.