Today is the first anniversary of the opening TV debate – you remember, the “I agree with Nick” one where Clegg completely outflanked Cameron and stole the limelight. That led us to an election where the LibDems actually lost seats but finished up in the driving seat and we had those 5 days of excitement as grandees from Hague to Mandelson pounded the streets trying to get the LibDems sufficiently excited to form a government.
We all know how that went but I wonder if it’s where Nick Clegg thought it would go and if he ever reflects about what would be happening now if he had hammered out a deal with his fellow left wingers.
Let’s be frank, Clegg was never going to do a deal with Brown, that would never have worked. I am a lifetime supporter of Labour but even I had grown sick and tired of that arrogant bully – the country was totally sick of him and it is a reflection of Labour’s strength and the loyalty the electorate had to their ideals that even with this joker at the helm they nearly pulled off a shock ‘get out of jail’ card.
But there was an alternative to getting into bed with David Cameron who, whilst sounding reasonable and “New Tory” was (and has since shown his true colours) a child of Thatcher and as ruthless and dismissive of the poor as any other Tory bullyboy.
Clegg could have tried to form a government himself.
In discussions with labour this was suggested to him - I recently sat with two of the negotiation team who told me they put this to Cable and Alexander behind Browns back. It removed the Brown issue as he could simply remain as leader of the Labour Party until they sorted all that out and have no part to play in the coalition Cabinet, it would have meant the Rainbow Coalition and that had some difficulties with the Irish parties, but it was doable.
Clegg ducked it of course and instead went into power with the smiling assassin. I would suggest his naivety and lack of political heavyweights at his side did for him here. Cameron had many to talk to, including Thatcher it later transpired, and he ran the tactics beautifully. Something he has continued to do.
Clegg seems at times like a rabbit stuck in the headlights. He doesn’t quite know what to do now that everybody is realising the cuts have little to do with economic recovery and much more to do with Tory Dogma. Conservative voters love that, they want a government that looks after them and stuffs it up what they see as the idle lazy poor. Conservatives are NIMBY’s to a man so Cameron sees his popularity strengthen.
By contrast, LibDems are gentle middle class folk who want to help those less fortunate than themselves (I exclude Danny Alexander from this definition as he becomes more Tory than most blue back benchers) and are horrified by the public bragging of Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Minister let’s not forget, and the other right wing hardliners who are driving the cuts policy now. As a result Clegg is massively unpopular even amongst his own party faithful and the LibDems are taking the national kicking that the Torys should really be ‘enjoying’.
So I wonder if Mr Clegg ever wakes up and thinks about what could have been. If he had true political balls he would be Prime Minister now with a Cabinet full of big hitting politically astute Labour heavyweights and LibDem governance. The changes to the voting system would be about heading for PR not AV and that would have widespread support AND seal a LibLab government probably forever.
Sure there would have been a few tough months with the currency and international rating but as Iceland have just proved the markets are fickle with very short term memories. The markets also fear recessionary governments and prefer good news scenarios – they will turn on the UK in the next year whether we balance the books or not if they don’t see us growing economically..
In short Clegg could have put the country back on track and into growth by now (instead of into recession where we are now), cuts could have been what was needed not what Torys demand, public services could have been maintained instead of being sold off to Cameron’s business friends, and the country could be feeling good about itself instead of looking sad, internationally exhausted and out of sync with the rest of the world.
There is much more heartache coming. The recession will run into stagflation and then depression whilst the rest of the world climbs out and gets on with business without the kind of drastic surgery the UK will endure.
Clegg is counting on a turn in fortunes before the next General Election – quite frankly he is insane; it simply will not happen. And if the British people reject the new voting system which seems likely now, he will have gambled his parties future and lost.
Politicians are supposed to crave power above everything else (the old saying about power corrupting is about them) and it’s ironic that Nick Cleggs lack of ambition has placed the whole country in this mess. The stage was there for him but he got stage fright. We will pay in the short term, his party will, however, be the final victims and he will go down in history as the man who killed the LibDems when he could have been the man who led them into government forever.
Shame really...............................
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