The House magazine features a smiling Danny Alexander on the cover, and a lengthy interview inside.
On the Comprehensive Spending Review:
Now that the dust has settled on the Spending Round, he has a rare moment to catch his breath and reflect on how it went. He says things went “more smoothly than many people outside this room thought when we started out on it”, but admits it was at times not easy.
“You are dealing with finding £11.5bn of savings. Of course those discussions are going to be difficult, they are robust exchanges. Sometimes they are me saying to the Secretary of State ‘I don’t think you should go that far in that particular area’. But often as you would expect it’s me pushing them further saying ‘Well you can do more, do you really do this in this way? Can you reform this public service in that way?’
“All of the discussions I had – almost all – were civilised, sensible, straightforward and with a collective understanding amongst ministers that we are trying to find the savings.”
On Trident:
Alexander has been busy working on the Coalition package on the future of Trident (the report was delivered to the PM and DPM last week). He rejects Hammond’s claim that Lib Dem policy on a replacement for Trident is not just naïve but also ‘reckless’ with the nation’s security.
“I don’t accept that. I’m not going to say too much about this now because we will be bringing forward the results of the review that I’ve been overseeing shortly. What I hope that will do is open up a debate about the fact that there are different ways of approaching nuclear deterrents that are responsible with our nation’s security whilst recognising that just like other aspects of our defence we don’t have to be stuck in the same Cold War postures of the past forever.
On his relationship with George Osbourne:
Some Lib Dems were slightly perturbed in 2010 to hear Alexander declare that no one could get a “cigarette paper” between his and George Osborne’s views on the economy. Was that just the heady days of the Rose Garden era, or is he still the most Coalicious of Cabinet ministers?
“George and I both work hard to make sure that the Treasury is the department where the Coalition works best, because it is the department that is responsible for the policy area that brought the two parties together in the first place.
“George and I have robust exchanges of views on a whole lot of subjects, but in the end sorting out the country’s economic problems, dealing with the deficit, getting our economy growing again – I think we are making progress. I think there are positive signs of momentum in our economy now. Of course people shouldn’t get carried away, it’s still early days and we’ve still got a long hard road ahead of us. I wouldn’t go back on anything I’d said about that before.”
Yet he stresses that the Lib Dems have managed to stamp their identity on the Coalition. “It’s about proving to people that you are as a party and as a politician able to do the right things for the country, day in day out – even if you are criticised for it, you are able to stick to a course and to do so in a way that delivers the values you went into politics to deliver. I think people who look at the Liberal Democrats in 2015 will see a party that has been battle-hardened, that has proved its ability to govern and that will be a powerful and compelling reason to vote Liberal Democrat.”
You can read the full article here.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames and is a member of Federal Conference Committee.