Liking Nick Clegg but not the Lib Dems

The stock of Nick Clegg is rising since his brave and principled stance at the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool this year. Read this by Fraser Nelson.

Fortunately for those who have supported economic liberalism Vince Cable is there to remind us that its just Nick Clegg who makes sense, and maybe a few orange book Lib Dems. The Sandalistas are still the unelectable majority.

No room for the Lib Dems ?

Why have the Orange book principles co-authored by nick Clegg not been implemented now he is leader ? Didn't he emphasis the Liberal part of Lib Dem ?

The wows of the Lib Dems are outlined today in the Telegraph...

Clegg starts the excuses for the local election results

Nick Clegg is getting his excuses in early blaming the lack of unpopularity of the other parties for the likely Lib Dem failure on Thursday in the local elections. He puts it as a lack of an Iraq factor ... something easy for the Lib Dems to oppose at no cost to themselves and win lots of votes.

He should be grateful that Gordon Brown is doing so badly right now - making him look at least adequate by comparison.

In his own words - what not holding a referendum would mean

It appears Nick Clegg's use of the Ming dodge for breaking his manifesto promise of the referendum for the Lisbon treaty constitution unravels when check what he's said on the record before the last election.

"The real reason, of course, why the government does not want to hold a referendum is the fear that it may lose ... Nothing will do more damage to the pro-European movement than giving room to the suspicion that we have something to hide, that we do not have the 'cojones' to carry out our argument to the people."

Hat tip to Conservative home - who are themselves quoting a Guardian Comment is free article by Niel O'Brien.

Nick Clegg supports racism in candidate selection

From the horse's mouth so to speak: -

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Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has written to Keith Vaz supporting his 10 Minute Rule Bill to allow for the creation of shortlists on the grounds of ethnicity in the selection of parliamentary candidates.

He has also said that the Liberal Democrats may have to consider all-minority shortlists in the future if the party cannot increase the number of MPs from ethnic minorities.

Commenting, Nick Clegg said:

"We need urgent action to tackle the woeful under-representation of Britain’s ethnic minorities in Parliament. All political parties are letting Britain down. If we want to represent modern Britain, modern Britain must be represented in us.

"Legislating to allow all-minority shortlists is a crucial step, which should be used as a backstop to force parties to act now. We can no longer tolerate a political system that does not represent Britain as a whole.

"The Liberal Democrats have taken a number of steps to boost ethnic representation in our ranks: the creation of a diversity fund; the employment of dedicated staff to increase candidate diversity; and plans to establish a Leadership Academy to give targeted assistance to candidates. But we need to go further, faster.

"That is why I believe, if existing and planned resources fail to make the difference in the coming years, the Liberal Democrats will be duty bound to consider using the powers in this proposed Bill."

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Of course what Clegg is proposing is illegal currently under English law and would be blocked by European law. So this is the usual cynicism then.

Lib Dems may support Conservative Govt.

Nick Clegg is taking his liberal principles to their logical conclusion and speculating about supporting a Conservative government.

The problem will be the two parties members - who spend most of their time opposing each other. The campaigning style and tactics of the Lib Dems are especially despised by the Tories ( and Labour for that matter ) and the Lib Dems often present themselves as an alternative party of the left.

Sparks are likely to fly.

Update: And here they are:

"A senior Liberal Democrat MP warned that Mr Clegg's move could split the party. He said: "I am pretty annoyed, to put it mildly. He hasn't discussed this within the parliamentary party. It would take some swallowing for the majority. We knew he was going to be like this. We knew he would be a maverick putting forward frankly right-wing ideas. There are a very significant number of centre-Left politicians who would find it totally unacceptable."" - Quoted in the Daily Mail ( From Conservative home ).

I suspect the truth is many Lib Dems thought they were only ever in politics to govern with Labour at the national level. The dynamics of this are going to be intresting.

Nick Clegg is perhaps trying to avoid the mess they made in the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments by just being Labour's hired help. But it won't go down well with the yellow groupies.

Clegg hires Thatcher campaign man

The BBC reports that Nick Clegg has hired John Sharkey, who is a former joint managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, has been named as Mr Clegg's adviser on strategic communications.

There is also a root and branch review of the Lib Dems under way. I wonder what the membership think of that ?

Is Nick Clegg anti-English ?

Nick Clegg, unlike Chris Huhne is against democracy for the English.

So is he as anti-English as Charles Kennedy was ? The English Democrats would like to know.

Which way will the Lib Dems face to keep their MPs ?

Iain Dale wonders in the Telegraph how the "Lib Dems face challenge to retain MPs".

He argues for a break with the "Only the Lib Dems can win hear" reliance on tactical voting squeezes. But what if that gets built into the system by AV PR ?

The BBC is quickly pointing out that the Lib Dems have most of the MPs facing Conservative threats. The the BBC no doubt hopes that they will therefore fight the Conservatives. Back to the 1990's. But is the point of the Lib Dems solely just as a electioneering hobby society hoping for the best result however its achieved ?

But Nick Clegg has declared his liberalism to be his defining characteristic. That puts him far closer to the Conservatives than Labour. After all he's over 40 now - time to start becoming a Tory anyway....

After all shouldn't politics be about what you actually believe in ?

Is Clegg out of touch ?

The Three Line Whip thinks so ....

Clegg on Newsnight slips up

Newsnight have been keen to give the Cleggoid a helpful shove into public politics, given he was so keen on a low profile leadership campaign.

Jeremy Paxman challenged him to say anything interesting about himself - to which he answered about liberalism and suggested Jeremy decides if its interesting. but the really damaging stuff was on the Cleggoids intention to use the New Labour con-trick of pretending to listen to 'ordinary people'. ( Remember Clegg had no idea who The Pogues are - so clearly deals with a lot of ordinary people. )

The Cleggoid talked about Britain in terms of tolerance and pluralism - no mention of England. You have to wonder if he sees himself as an Englishman at all !

Clegg then screws up talking about a Conservative government ( when he means the Conservative party ).

The Cleggoid states challenges for his party, when asked to by Paxman:

Start where people are. ( Confused if listening to this is anything to go by ), not where we think they should be. ( Notice the implied wish to boss everyone round and make them into slaves of his political ideals ). He then mentions Education, health and security ( YAWN YAWN - this is the bankrupt politics he's going to spend the next few weeks trying to decry - it because politicians go on about motherhood and apple pie all the time that the public is giving up on them.) Paxo points out this is what everyone else says , but the Cleggoid - bless his cotton socks - says he doesn't think they have the answers (more YAWN - no analysis ). Now the old talking not delivering line from Clegg ( absolutely anyone in any party could mouth this drivel ).
Then he promises new thinking from his party on these issues - we'll we will have to wait and see.

Cleggoid talks about his plan for Town hall meetings ( tm Gordon Brown and New Labour ) - but then admits that he won't change his mind after listening to people !! So for example the wish of the vast majority of the people for a referendum on the EU Constitution gets the colleagues standard answer of no - but we might think of one on the EU ( you can be sure that wouldn't happen if he thought he might lose it ).

In short Nick Clegg thinks the people are wrong, and doesn't intend to change his mind after listening to them.

Doesn't look very liberal does it ? He's certainly not sounding very democratic.

Wonder how this will go down with the Lib Dems ?

Clegg is an atheist, but brings his kids up as Catholics

To get Advent going for the Lib Dems it turns out that Clegg doesn't believe in God, but is brinign his children up as Catholics.

That's the two faced type of thinking his party is famous for.

So as a true liberal he has no basis for any morality at all !

Perhaps 500 Lib Dems might have voted the other way if they knew this about him - but he kept so quiet about so much during his leadership yawn contest.