Nick Clegg: The Impossible Choice
Simon Jenkins on the limited political future of one Nick Clegg:
Clegg the politician was a nice chap. He could have made a good departmental minister. Back in May he could have decided otherwise, standing aloof from office and declaring that his party would debate and vote on each government measure on its merits. That would have been a true Liberal Democrat dawn, from which he could have returned perhaps more successfully to fight the Tories at the polls.Now I'd agree - in part. Nick Clegg is basically fucked as Lib Dem leader. His decision in May was always going to work for roughly half his party, and really piss off the other half. That's the nature of his compromise. Had he done it the other way round - and jumped into bed with Labour - he would still have alienated half of its parties and half of his followers. He had to make a choice, and he did. It was never going to please everyone, which is what makes it a compromise.
Instead Clegg chose glory in death. He came to the rescue of Cameron in the latter's hour of need and enabled him to steer the economy out of Labour's morass. I have no doubt Cameron will show gratitude, offering honorary life membership of the Tory party, a safe seat and a comfy place on the Notting Hill sofa. For Clegg that might be enough. But as leader of the Liberal Democrats, he has booked a ticket to oblivion.
And this notion that the Lib Dems could have chosen a third way (no pun intended) of voting on each issue as and when they arise rather than going into coalition is a non-starter. All that would have happened is the Cameron would have gone to the country again sooner rather than later. His party was the only one with the funds to fight another election, and both the Tories and Labour would have a massive stick with which to beat the Lib Dems - that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for unstable government and for political instability.
This is the tragedy of Nick Clegg; he had no choice but to compromise, but by compromising, he ended up shooting himself in the foot. And, as far as I am concerned, he made the best of a bad situation. That's not going to stop the carping of lefties throughout the country, though...
Labels: Calamity Clegg, Coalition, Con-Dems, Lib Dems
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 2:02 pm
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Furthermore, if he hadn't gone in to a coalition the LibDems would have lost the moral high ground over PR.
Still hoping the coalition deal leads to a split back into (proper) liberal and social democrats
Come the next election the LibDems won't be able to campaign against anything the government has done except on a wishy-washy basis of "we would have done a bit more of this" or "we would have done a bit less of that", neither of which will enthuse the voters.
That isn't such a problem for the Conservatives as they could choose to take up issues which are important to the electorate but which are ignored by the political class, such as Euroscepticism or social conservatism. They have a strategic hinterland in which to manoeuvre while the LibDems do not. They can only distance themselves from coalition policies by moving to the left, so their line of retreat is blocked by Labour.
The LibDems won't really have any choice but to accept an electoral coalition with the Conservatives, on terms that are almost entirely dictated by the Conservatives. They can't go to the country with a message of "we reject everything we supported a week ago".
This means that the coalition represents the final end of the LibDem project. The Orange Book liberals will be absorbed into the Cameroon Conservatives. The SDP wing of the LibDems may revolt and become an independent party, but they would be competing with Labour for the leftist/statist vote and Labour has union money behind it. There would be no reason for anyone to vote for SDP 2.0 when a vote for Labour was more likely to deliver the same things.
Clegg really had three choices, all of them fatal to his party:
(1) Make a coalition with the Conservatives that was always likely to destroy the LibDems, but which would give them a brief taste of power
(2) Make a coalition with Labour, and be part of what would become the most unpopular and unsuccessful government in British history
(3) Refuse to join any coalition, and thus pass up the best chance of getting into government that they were ever likely to have
Clegg chose the least bad option because he never had any good ones.
They can't go to the country with a message of "we reject everything we supported a week ago".
Labour is using that tactic and judging by the polls it seems to be working.
Labour's poll boost is largely based on the fact that they don't have a leader. Once they do, that leader will act as a lightening rod for all the mistakes of the Nu Labour era, and their poll ratings will nosedive again (not least because they will have elected a charisma vacuum).
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