O Captain! my Captain!

Just read a piece in today's Guardian about an interview with Nick Clegg where he is quoted as saying, "We will be quite bold or even savage on current spending, precisely to be able to retain spending where... the economy is weak in infrastructure".

The first part sent a chill, the second part soothed... a little!

I just wish he'd said "t'other way round" emphasise the need to invest in the public realm especially in the infrastructure.
Invest and re-animate the Building Schools for the Future programme which seems to have stalled over the past few years. So that, we can have not just hundreds, but thousands of new schools built and fit for purpose in the 21st century.

A massive house-building/home-improvement programme to ensure that we have green energy efficient homes for life.
A bold and imaginative investment in public transport, especially the railways so that we can catch up with the rest of Europe in high-speed trains, and encourage freight off the roads and on to the track.

There are so many other areas of investment needed that ONLY the state is capable of marshalling resources, remember Roosevelt's America of the 1930s?

I'm afraid that the debate about public spending is being hi-jacked by the Tories who wish to cut on ideological grounds, and Labour who are following meekly like the proverbial lambs to the slaughter.

We Lib Dems must show the way, rather than follow some mad Thatcherite agenda and try to out-macho on cuts the likes of Osborne and Darling.

The quote is from Walt Whitman and the second verse goes:
O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

The country is hungry for change, and only we Lib Dems can provide the vision, the values, and the vigour to lead the charge.