A Plan for Economic Recovery

In addition they don't realise that the last one may be presenting the first's proposals in different words.

I am of course, talking about the main political party conferences, which have taken place over the last three weeks and yes, the Liberal Democrats went first.

The conferences have this year been overshadowed by the current global financial crisis. I use the word overshadowed because the current world situation is affecting everyone's lives. For those in their early working lives who haven't experienced these downturns before, it is not just the amount of media coverage that is getting a little scary. People are struggling with rising bills, rising prices, and wages that aren't keeping up, and that includes those here in Bexhill and Battle where the local and rural wage earners have to compete with higher earning commuters for housing.

The economic world works in a series of peaks and troughs and the current trough is, I acknowledge, deeper than any others I have known in my lifetime. I remember paying mortgage interest at 15% when there was a letter every month, it seemed, from the Building Society saying that rates were going up another one whole percent - and that was when the Conservatives were in government. It was also at the time when the junk mail really started arriving with letters offering credit through the launch of yet another credit card facility.

It is now finally being realised by all that the world of large mortgages and excessive personal debt is not sustainable. An excessively free market leads to disaster for many, when the richer get richer and the poor poorer with the gap in between ever widening.

For some time now Liberal Democrats have been both issuing warnings and developing policy to bring about a fairer economic situation. Much of this is set out in our policy paper 'Freedom from Poverty, Opportunity for All' which was debated and passed by the Liberal Democrat conference in Sept 2007 and which has been built on, throughout the year, with further motions at conference two weeks ago.

Our parliamentary team is led by the much-respected Vince Cable. If plagiarism is the highest form of flattery he should now be very flattered by the words issuing from Labour and Conservative leaders.

But sadly Gordon Brown's response is too little too late and the proposals from David Cameron and George Osborne still lack substance.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently called for action to cut energy bills, stop irresponsible behaviour by banks and deliver more help for those threatened with repossession. Now, in response to the economic slowdown, we have published an Economic Recovery Plan summarising the work done over recent months. It includes proposals to:

Put more money in people's pockets - tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes.

Stop unnecessary home repossessions and provide more affordable housing.

Make energy companies reinvest their windfall profits in cutting bills.

Provide extra help for people in debt or who lose their jobs.

Introduce tough new rules to limit the excesses of the City.

Much more can be freely found and in detail on www.libdems.org.uk. I'd like to think that both Gordon and Dave are reading it now.