Originally written Tuesday,
27th May 2014
Liberal Democrats
always get a kicking in the local elections. So does the Party in power. Little
surprise then when the LibDems, fulfilling both the criteria of being LibDems,
and the Party in power, faced a massive drubbing last week.
In his own words
‘heartbroken’, in the words’ of others ‘toxic’ and ‘no longer credible’, poor
Nick really has had a bad couple of weeks.
Questions will
inevitably be asked of the LibDem strategy going in to the recent elections.
Tony Blair praised Nick Clegg’s leadership in going head to head with Farage
and UKIP. A brave decision maybe, but the brave decision isn’t always the best
decision, or in fact the winning decision. Ed Miliband spent most of the
campaign keeping his head down hoping that Nigel Farage wouldn’t notice him and
therefore wouldn’t steal his lunch money. Not a particularly bold move, but
arguably strategically sound in the face of the rampant wave of Euro-scepticism
sweeping the continent. Miliband hardly has a reputation for boldness or
strength anyway, therefore, stood to lose precisely nothing from avoiding a
fight with the more energetic, flamboyant Farage. There was going to be quite a
vicious protest vote, and in most situations, it’s those who oppose who make
the most noise. Miliband kept out of the way and didn’t antagonise Farage, his
voters or undecideds too much. He dodged the UKIP pummelling handed out to
Clegg, and that could be considered a victory of sorts. Clegg fought Farage
head on, and challenged him to a debate which he promptly lost. If there’s one
thing I’m certain of, it’s that you can’t call someone out and lose. You look
mighty silly.
It’s the easiest
thing to walk away when the going gets tough. Not my words. Clegg’s. For all
his talk of decisions being vindicated, and not buckling under the pressure, he
seems to have forgotten that his totemic policy going in to 2010 was the
abolition of tuition fees – a policy which by all accounts he had all but given
up on as early as March 2010, resigning thousands of students to years of debt.
Such is the turf of political message delivery that the details don’t matter.
Clegg screwed the students makes for a lovely headline.
Yet further, as
asserted by Tony Blair, Clegg started May 2010 on the left of Labour. After the
dust had settled and the smoke had cleared, he emerged at the end of the very
same month on the right of Labour in a coalition with the Conservatives. As he
appeared as Deputy Prime Minister, blinking in the full glare of the press, he
could hardly believe his luck, and a great number of his supporters could
hardly believe their eyes – their leader, as popular in some polls as President
Obama, had played Kingmaker with their votes and had ended up on the wrong side
of the political spectrum. His transformation from popular protest vote to
fully authenticated member of the establishment is long since complete. Can the
average voter really see any difference between Clegg and Cameron anymore?
Could they ever? And can the average voter really be expected to sift through the
mountains of information required to really see the details of Clegg’s input?
It’s much easier to tar him with the same brush as those right-wingers. It’s
much easier to believe, and much simpler to project that he blithely went along
with good old Dave. He was always going to be tainted by the Conservatives, the
LibDems were always going to be punished if they delivered anything but a
perfect rendition for their supporters, and whoever led them in such a
coalition could never prosper in the long term.
Perhaps this is
LibDem voters expecting too much. Clegg was their saviour. For once they would
have a real chance at power. For once they could make a difference instead of
being third out of three. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that was ever really a
possibility in a Cameron Ministry.
In fact, if this
leaked poll is to be believed, Mr. Clegg is in line to lose his Sheffield seat
next May as well.
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