"Once more the Liberal Democrats have positioned themselves as the party of economic competence who understand the importance of maintaining important frontline public services". Peter Black
HEADLINE ON YAHOO NEWS - which our esteemed AM Peter Black might wish to comment on???
Nick Clegg, the leader of the hot air balloon Liberal Democrats, is having to jettison policies fast. Are we uncovering a new definition of 'lightweight'? By Alex Stevenson
The political climate as Britain heads to the polls this spring is a nervous, uncertain sort of place. The public finances are in a grave state.
But party activists continue to cling pessimistically to the expectation the number of Lib Dem MPs will go down, not up, after polling day. Clegg's hand-wringing assessment of the situation at a speech in Canary Wharf certainly placed the emphasis on the challenges ahead.
"The party which will win the argument in this year's election campaign is the party which finds a way of marrying credibility and hope, restraint and generosity, discipline and compassion," he stated, before adding (if you might be thinking otherwise): "That is what the Liberal Democrats will provide."
Exactly how they will achieve this balance is not yet clear. This is not because Clegg has provided a speech whose primary newsworthiness lies in its policy-shedding nature. It is because Clegg's speech utterly undermines his claim that the Lib Dems are the "different" party which he says Britain so ardently desires.
The Lib Dems seem so mired in the same problems faced by the other parties they seem incapable of distinguishing themselves where it matters.
Take the three "simple beliefs" from which Clegg basis his current political thinking.
Number one, treating the voters like "grown-ups", comes straight from the inside of George Osborne's brain. Tory strategy since last autumn has been to play it straight to the voters, to tell it like it is. The public want politicians to "spell out their priorities, rather than live in denial", as Osborne has made clear countless times.
It doesn't matter which one said that quote, by the way, as the meaning is the same. But for your information it was Clegg.
Next comes Clegg's determination to "stick to the big ideas". An interesting use of phrase, that. Gordon Brown will tell disgruntled Labour backbenchers this evening he believes Labour can win the election by fighting it on "big ideas, not small ones". Clegg, like the prime minister, is more than happy keeping this election broad-brush.
It doesn't get more broad-brush than this: "The hype about the future of Britain being at stake is true."
The final "simple belief" is equally striking. Clegg's right in valuing "the importance of conviction", even if it does amount to a rather trite political home truth. Therein lies the risk. Having abandoned many of his party's most distinctive policies, is the Clegg version of conviction likely to prove a vote-winner - or a vote-loser?
This is the section of the speech which poses the gravest perils for the tightrope-balancing Lib Dem leader. On the one hand, he is determined to "reshape our country". On the other, his manifesto - normally a fairly decent opportunity to lay out precisely how that process might take place - is set to be modelled on rather minimalist tendencies.
"The heart of our manifesto will be short, direct and to the point," Clegg said. "We have stripped away everything that is not essential because the country cannot afford it."
This has more than a whiff of the "savage cuts" air about it. That phrase, given in his pre-conference interview last September, was delivered with an unseemly relish not appreciated by all activists in Bournemouth.
He's demonstrated of the problems facing party leaders in the coming election. Clegg's problem, and his party's, is he hasn't yet worked out how to solve them
2 Comments:
As usual, the position the Lib Dems occupy when under pressure is on the fence.
HEADLINE ON YAHOO NEWS - which our esteemed AM Peter Black might wish to comment on???
Nick Clegg, the leader of the hot air balloon Liberal Democrats, is having to jettison policies fast. Are we uncovering a new definition of 'lightweight'?
By Alex Stevenson
The political climate as Britain heads to the polls this spring is a nervous, uncertain sort of place. The public finances are in a grave state.
But party activists continue to cling pessimistically to the expectation the number of Lib Dem MPs will go down, not up, after polling day. Clegg's hand-wringing assessment of the situation at a speech in Canary Wharf certainly placed the emphasis on the challenges ahead.
"The party which will win the argument in this year's election campaign is the party which finds a way of marrying credibility and hope, restraint and generosity, discipline and compassion," he stated, before adding (if you might be thinking otherwise): "That is what the Liberal Democrats will provide."
Exactly how they will achieve this balance is not yet clear. This is not because Clegg has provided a speech whose primary newsworthiness lies in its policy-shedding nature. It is because Clegg's speech utterly undermines his claim that the Lib Dems are the "different" party which he says Britain so ardently desires.
The Lib Dems seem so mired in the same problems faced by the other parties they seem incapable of distinguishing themselves where it matters.
Take the three "simple beliefs" from which Clegg basis his current political thinking.
Number one, treating the voters like "grown-ups", comes straight from the inside of George Osborne's brain. Tory strategy since last autumn has been to play it straight to the voters, to tell it like it is. The public want politicians to "spell out their priorities, rather than live in denial", as Osborne has made clear countless times.
It doesn't matter which one said that quote, by the way, as the meaning is the same. But for your information it was Clegg.
Next comes Clegg's determination to "stick to the big ideas". An interesting use of phrase, that. Gordon Brown will tell disgruntled Labour backbenchers this evening he believes Labour can win the election by fighting it on "big ideas, not small ones". Clegg, like the prime minister, is more than happy keeping this election broad-brush.
It doesn't get more broad-brush than this: "The hype about the future of Britain being at stake is true."
The final "simple belief" is equally striking. Clegg's right in valuing "the importance of conviction", even if it does amount to a rather trite political home truth. Therein lies the risk. Having abandoned many of his party's most distinctive policies, is the Clegg version of conviction likely to prove a vote-winner - or a vote-loser?
This is the section of the speech which poses the gravest perils for the tightrope-balancing Lib Dem leader. On the one hand, he is determined to "reshape our country". On the other, his manifesto - normally a fairly decent opportunity to lay out precisely how that process might take place - is set to be modelled on rather minimalist tendencies.
"The heart of our manifesto will be short, direct and to the point," Clegg said. "We have stripped away everything that is not essential because the country cannot afford it."
This has more than a whiff of the "savage cuts" air about it. That phrase, given in his pre-conference interview last September, was delivered with an unseemly relish not appreciated by all activists in Bournemouth.
He's demonstrated of the problems facing party leaders in the coming election. Clegg's problem, and his party's, is he hasn't yet worked out how to solve them
NOTHING NEW THERE THEN - TYPICAL LIB DEM.
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