Liberal Democrats Are Illiberal

The Lib Dems have demonstrated their failure to understand that this country must live by business, that there is a global market and that in order to carry on business successfully in a global market the cost of doing so must be competitive. It was  therefore a bad decisionof the Tories to put Lib Dems in charge of both the Business and Energy Ministries. Lib Dems are misnamed as they have absolutely nothing to do with true Liberals who were of course believers in free markets like the great David Ricardo. David Ricardo is the very antithesis of people like Cable and Huhne who are more socialist than Liberal. What this country needs urgently and desperately is growth and growth cannot come from high energy tariffs and overbearing regulation. The Tories talk about cutting red tape but so far it is just that. they have failed to carry out significant cuts and they will get little further with Cable in the Business Ministry. The fact that the EU imposes regulation after regulation is no excuse. If the EU won't do our bidding on regulation then the answer is simple. We leave the EU if it won't change its ways or give us carte blanche to choose which ones to reject. As to high energy tariffs there is a simple answer here too. We resile from all CO2 remission restrictions we have agreed to, build more coal and nuclear power stations and exploit the shale gas we have lying under us. At the same time we pull down all wind farms and bin all solar panels. CO2 emissions are not a problem as is becoming increasingly clear. Let us learn from our own history. Let us learn from the fight over the abolition of the Corn Laws and let us remember what Richard Cobden reported was said to him during that fight which words apply just as equally today in the fight over global warming: When provisions are high, the people have so much to pay for them that they have little or nothing left to buy clothes with; and when they have little to buy clothes with, there are few clothes sold; and when there are few clothes sold, there are too many to sell, they are very cheap; and when they are very cheap, there cannot be much paid for making them: and that, consequently, the manufacturing working man's wages are reduced, the mills are shut up, business is ruined, and general distress is spread through the country. But when, as now, the working man has the said 25s. left in his pocket, he buys more clothing with it (ay, and other articles of comfort too), and that increases the demand for them, and the greater the demand...makes them rise in price, and the rising price enables the working man to get higher wages and the masters better profits. This, therefore, is the way I prove that high provisions make lower wages, and cheap provisions make higher wages.