Nick Clegg accused of “bare-faced deception” by Wiltshire UKIP’s chairman Neil Hamilton

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has come under UKIP fire following his surprise announcement that he believes the coalition government’s austerity programme “may have gone too far.”

Neil Hamilton, chairman of Wiltshire UKIP, who has announced that his party will fight all the Wiltshire parliamentary seats at the next election, accused Mr Clegg of “bare-faced deception,”

In a statement to Marlborough News Online, the former Tory MP asked: “ Is Nick Clegg just pig-ignorant – or deliberately dishonest?

“He says ‘austerity may have gone too far’.  His implication is, we have had big cuts in public spending.  This is bare-faced deception”.

Mr Hamilton pointed out that far from spending less, Tory chancellor George Osborne had enthusiastically carried on with the last Labour government’s rake’s progress.

“This is the reality,” he declared. “Government spending actually increased during 2010-11 and fell back by only 1.5 per cent last year.  It is more than £22 billion higher than in 2008, when the financial crisis erupted.”

“Osborne plans to cut spending by only 5 to 6 per cent by 2016-17 — just like Cameron’s EU referendum promise this week, so far away, who cares?”

“Let’s be honest about this.  Ministers are addicted to spending our money and what they can’t extort from us in taxes, they just print.  Government spending is 50 per cent higher in real terms than 10 years ago. Yes, that’s right.  50 per cent higher today than in 2003.”

And Mr Hamilton asked: “What is it that the government wasn’t supplying 10 years ago that we now cannot live without?”

“Government is spending £5 for every £4 raised in taxes and the National Debt is going through the roof.  It is rising by £120 billion every year.”

“It’s an odd kind of austerity where the Chancellor presides over a doubling of the National Debt in five years.  It took previous governments over 300 years — from 1694 to 2009 — to run up a debt of £700 billion.”

“George Osborne has equalled that in just five.  In 2009, he inherited a debt of £700 billion from Labour.   By the next election in 2015, it will have risen to £1.5 trillion.”

“That’s progress, I suppose.  Well, whatever it is, it certainly isn’t austerity.  Clegg should try telling the truth about his government’s complete failure to cut public spending, but that would break the habit of a lifetime.”