If the Liberal Democrats had any powerful men-in-grey-suits they should be striding towards Mr Clegg’s office tonight to give him the roasting of his political life. His populist position on the Lisbon Treaty has failed on all fronts and now he must face the public backlash and the political crisis within his own party. How has it come to this?
Well, for reasons best left to Mr Clegg he decided against sticking to his 2005 election committment and backing a public poll on the Lisbon Treaty. Quite why is beyond me, but never mind. He then thought up a huge wheeze – go for the big referendum on the “in-out” question; he’ll look mildly euro-realistic, it’ll be an elephant trap for the Tory right and gets him out of his Lisbon hole. One problem – it was a rubbish plan.
Immediately people like me, who want Britain to say in Europe but don’t see the need for a constitution/treaty would be disenfranchised. It’s like saying if you won’t play football then you won’t play any ball game at all. Europe-with-Lisbon or no Europe at all. Actually, Mr Clegg, I want to be in Europe but without Lisbon. I want to play Rugby (if you follow my point).
Now Mr Clegg could have hidden behind political obscurity and hope nobody noticed this blunder, but then a dozen or so of his parliamentary party promised their electorate they’d vote for a referendum and this blew the lid off the plan. Again, Nick Clegg could have dealt with this – but he insisted on having a massive LibDem frontbench (half his party count as such) and so consequently a few of them held important posts and so having them resign looks bad.
He might still have escapes, but then he went on Newsnight last night and totally humiliated himself; firstly by being savaged by Paxo and then saying that Brown was u-turning but, of course, he wasn’t at all… And then he chose the most barking of views; that he should three line whip his MPs into abstaining! So he’s prepared to force his own side to resign over not making up their mind!
And today three senior members of his party quit and, from what I hear in Norwich, his party grassroots are in uproar. Not helped by the fact that 63 will be his magic number – the number of votes that the referendum was defeated by and also the number of MPs in his party.
So, Nick Clegg is utterly humiliated in a political crisis entirely of his own making. He could have avoided this at several points and didn’t.
This issue is no longer about Europe, it’s about Clegg’s judgement. He should go home, learn the lessons, make up with his own party … then start working on his reshuffle. Because I’m pretty sure a few LibDem MPs will be going to home to think about their future under Clegg.
The brilliant post , by the brilliant blogger Dizzy is slightly annoying.
I knew about the re-branding of the LDYS into the Liberal Youth some weeks ago and also of the plans by new Leader Nick Clegg to kidnapp the launch for his own spin purposes. This has been frustrating a lot of the leading lights of the LDYS and even Clegg backers arefuming about his decision.
The name – which you have to admit does rather bring to mind the Hitler Youth, even only in title rather than operation – isn’t the only problem for the youthful LibDem chief. Apparently he is preparing the hijack the movement as a vehicle for his own brand of Liberalism, leaving a lot of the more social democratic-minded members high and dry. It’s certainly causing a fuss at grassroots level.
So, Dizzy beat me to it – how? I didn’t blog it because it fell under the “will anyone care” category in my brain. Clearly they do – both the gleefull bloggers having fun with it and the “shock and horror” reaction by the faithful LibDems.
Nick Clegg had a very competent first outing at PMQs, although to be fair he could compete with neither Cameron’s brilliant performance (”You were the future, once…”) or Vince Cable’s classic performances (”Stalin to Mr Bean”), although Cable’s efforts were done with the freedom of being acting leader with no expectations.
I did think, however, that he made two slight erros – nothing major, but worth noting.
Firstly he spoke from the middle of the front row of LibDem MPs, rather than in the traditional corner seat nearest the dispatch box and Speaker. Although this meant he was surrounded by frontbench colleagues cheering and nodding furiously, it did look rather like he was dodging battle and was avoiding facing down the Tory and Labour heckles. He looked safe in his new seat and well guarded but didn’t look like he had the drive to be sitting in any other seat.
Also his choice of subject was a little bizarre. Some people have said that Cameron stole his topic (ID cards) and he was forced to use his emergency questions. I’m not too sure about this. I think he wanted some in-depth and worthy questions to mark a difference between himself and the jokey style of Vince. Is this the LibDems missing the big issue or trying to agenda set themselves?
What I did think was more clever was the use of other LibDem MP to ask supplementary questions on the same topic. Clegg has to survive with fewer shots at the PM than Cameron and usually LibDem MPs ask worthy questions regarding constituency issues. This method means Brown could come under more sustained scrutiny from the LibDems.
So overall a mixed bag. Clegg is new and untested. We’ll have to wait and see!
It is clearly that a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Manchester has resigned days after Nick Clegg becomes leader and defects to the Conservatives. David Cameron’s appearance to welcome him into the party shows how seriously we are taking both such northern cities and also poaching of LibDems.
Nick Clegg must have been fuming into his cornflakes this morning. Quite frankly he could have done with a defection at the start of his leadership (he may well still have one tucked away somewhere, but that card should have been played by now) but to lose a Councillor from Manchester like this is very embarrasing to him.
Cameron starts the year well (the NHS speech was very good too) and has laid down a marker that he is not willing to ceed ground to Clegg at all.
Regular readers will know I am generally sceptical about defectors, but this one says a lot about Cameron, Clegg and the political battle ahead.
Having started well, Nick Clegg today walked straight into his first political brick wall with his post-election reshuffle. Not the people in the shuffle, obviously, but his first quote about it.
“I’m hugely excited to announce my new shadow cabinet. I think this team is the strongest political team in British politics today,” he said.
Oh dear. And this man wants to be taken seriously. It’s bad enough they use the term “shadow cabinet” which according to the Parliamentary Library is a term reserved only for the main opposition party. But to claim the LibDems have the strongest team in British politics is so far from the mark it makes you wonder if Nick Clegg is the man who writes all those bar-chart stories for Focus leaflets.
Let’s compare and contrast.
Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is having a tough time of it at the moment – but in Huhne versus David Davis, its got to be Basher all the way.
Now think about pigmy Foreign Secretary Milliband against Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague. I think both of them dwarf poor little Ed Davey.
Now what about Business? John Hutton and Alan Duncan – both polished performers with a good background. Clearly, no, we’d all prefer to see Sarah Teather in the job.
The environment? Hilary Benn, Peter Ainsworth or … Steve Webb?
Housing: Absolutely anybody would be better than Lembit!
In fact, I cannot find a single portfolio where the LibDem spokesman would be better than both their Labour or Tory equivalent.
There are clearly some good people on the LibDem frontbench – Browne, Cable, Featherstone, Lamb to name a few. But these are not the political giants in this country.
Add to that the news that the LibDem Frontbench team is now nearly half their total parliamentary party and you understand why their top team is becoming more and more like an “everybody wins a prize” machine.
That was Nick Clegg’s answer when asked if he believes in God. I think he was quite right to be honest and this may be the chance we need to broaden politican debate when it comes to religion.
I believe in God. My wife and children are all Catholic and I too attend Mass. I am not christened but do count myself as some kind of christian. However I believe that we best express our christian faith not through the symbols we wear or the church services we attend, but how we behave and act towards others. I like to think I am christian in outlook and attitude if not strictly so on paper.
David Cameron, when asked the same question, gave the brilliant answer “yes, but I don’t have a direct hotline.” There was once a time when any serious British politican, let alone the man who could be the next Prime Minister, would have to have a serious attitude towards religion. Now I think we can finally start to talk about this properly. After all, it isn’t long before Blair converts to catholicism.
I want politicans to show respect, honesty, tolerance, decency, selflessness and – yes – love. If I can get all those things from a non-believer then that is as good as such qualities from a regular church-goer.
I am (as you might expect from a man who teaches at a catholic school) a great supporter of religion. But the qualities of a leader I expect aren’t always synonymous with being a christian.
So well done to Nick Clegg – a thought provoking start!
The 511 vote margin of victory for Nick Clegg in today’s LibDem Leadership vote will no doubt occupy vast reams of blog pages, so I will just stick to a few key points.
Firstly, just over 40,000 people voted – down on those that turned out to elect Sir Ming and a worrying sign for the membership of the LibDems generally.
Secondly the slim margin of victory may cause a headache for Clegg everytime he has a party showdown. He actually got, if you include spoilt ballot papers and those with the inevitable Cable write-ins, less than 50% of the vote. No prize to the first LibDem to throw that back at him when me makes an unpopular decision.
Thirdly, the LibDems will now have a leader for whom the word “calamity” will forever be linked. Again, no prizes for the first use of that at PMQs, Question Time etc. It’s a tag he won’t be able to shift.
Lastly is the problem with what to do with Huhne. Chris must be gutted ; but the frontbench reshuffle would be easier if it were Huhne shuffling Nick (remaining as Home Affairs Spokesman is a no-brianer) but less easy to know what Nick should do with Chris. Sticking at Environment plays down his important and the fact he was a handful of votes away from being party leader, but can he have somebody who personally dislikes him so much in one of the key jobs? Vince is guaranteed Deputy Leadership and the Treasury. What can Nick do that doesn’t look bad?
I always said – to some derision – that the Tories would fear Huhne more and I stick by that. This is the wrong decision for the LibDems and, as so, Cameron must be laughing tonight. Huhne was capable of leading them forward in terms of media and intellectually. Lightweight Clegg – Calamity Man – hasn’t had a good leadership contest.
So well done, Mr Clegg. We all look forward, with interest, to what you do now.
After all of the excitement that the corpse of the Liberal Democrats may yet be twitching, an ICM poll confirms today that their ratings have slipped by another 2%. The poll puts Cameron up, again, 11% ahead of Labour and heading for an overall parliamentary majority. You might have thought that a leadership election, which puts the party in the spotlight, may result in a poll improvement … but it seems that the backbiting of the Clegg-Huhne battle (which looks, according to YouGov to be too close to call) has damaged the party yet further.
Wales: Labour will lose their majority in the Welsh assembly with the Tories becoming the second party winning some surprising seats. At this high Nick Bourne will resign and the party will elect a younger, more Cameronesque leader.
Scotland: Labour will face a difficult election but will remain the large party in the parliament. Other parties will attempt to form a coalition but will fail, leading to a fragile Labour / LibDem administration limping on.
Labour Leadership: John Hutton will be the only candidate to take on Gordon Brown for the top job, with the election coming in June or July. Brown will win by a decent margin and Hutton will then refuse to serve in a Brown-led cabinet. Despite a big bounce in the polls, Labour’s finances mean that Brown cannot go for a snap poll.
The cabinet: At least seven current ministers will go – (obviously Blair and Prescott) but I think Armstrong, Straw, Smith, Beckett, Hutton, Jowell and Falconer as well. How about this – Brown is elected Leader and Hilary Benn his Deputy. In a move that angers a lot of people (and the Daily Mail), he appoints fellow Scot Alistair Darling as the new Chancellor. John Reid takes a lower profile role as Leader of the House, which allows Alan Johnson to be the new Home Secretary as a reward for not taking on Gordon. Ruth Kelly is shifted over to somethin like International Development as she is given more time to defend her marginal parliamentary seat. David Milliband will be given a promotion to a major spending department like Education. Hewitt will survive as Health Secretary. Dull but loyal Stephen Timms will creep up the ladder again – maybe to Trade Secretary? Des Browne will move on from Defence into a less potent job like Constitutional Affairs. As he failed to be elected Deputy Leader, Peter Hain is appointed the new Foreign Secretary. Hazel Blears is shifted out of the Party Chairmanship and is replaced by Douglas Alexander. Blears is given a difficult role such as Work and Pensions.
Shadow Cabinet: Cameron will flesh out his version of Conservatism and it will reassure both the right of the party and the Daily Telegraph. David Davis will take on a much higher profile role. Cameron will use the summer as a chance to set in stone the team he wants to go into the next election. Hague will take the title of Deputy Leader byt both he and Osbourne will keep their present jobs. May will be downgraded again but will stay in the shadow cabinet. Grayling will be promoted again, as will Villiers. Some of Cameron’s key players such as Gove, Vaizey and Herbert will make the shadow cabinet.
Norwich: Labour will hold on at the 2007 poll but only as a result of a split opposition. The Greens will continue to make gains (plural) and Labour will hold their key seats. Conservatives to hold onto Catton Grove and make further gains.
National: Cameron will score very well across the country, partly because of his strength in England and partly because of the introduction of STV in Scotland. Labour have a bad night – another factor in Brown’s decision not to call a snap election. The LibDems will score a net reduction in seats.
LibDems: Following a bad May poll, Sir Ming Campbell will retire citing ill-health. A leadership election will follow that will be fought by Clegg, Huhne and Lamb. Huhne will win – only just and the two losers will be his Home and Foreign Affairs spokespeople. Cable will carry on as Deputy Leader and Treasury Spokesman. They will be forced to repay the £2.4m Brown money but it will not bankrupt the party.
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