Cameron and Brown treating people like fools over ‘efficiency savings’ says Clegg
Originally published by UK Liberal Democrats
Speaking today at Oxford Brookes University, Nick Clegg said:
"One thing I will not do, and Labour and the Conservatives are doing, is try to fool you into thinking that you can fill in one of the biggest black holes in our public finances in generations through phantom, fantasy 'efficiency savings'.
"It's an insult to your intelligence that David Cameron and Gordon Brown pretend that you can fill a structural deficit the size of which we haven't seen since the Second World War through savings on paperclips in Whitehall.
"It's a nonsense, it's a joke, they're treating you like fools.
"So when you next hear David Cameron and Gordon Brown talking about billions and billions of so-called efficiency savings, don't believe a word of it.
"That's why Vince Cable, myself and the rest of the Liberal Democrats took the decision to spell out in our manifesto item by item, saving by saving, how we would find £15bn of cuts.
"£5bn will go towards our priorities. The rest, £10bn, is a serious down payment to deal with this structural deficit."