The wrong front man

When Nick Clegg told the Independent in April last year that he was “pushing it all the way” to secure a deal on electoral reform, he described Gordon Brown’s offer of AV as a “miserable little compromise”. He insisted that his party would only ever settle for a truly proportional system for electing MPs.

Of course, that was when polls briefly suggested that Lib Dems would take second spot in the general election, even under the damnable FPTP system, thereby providing a future foundation for further gains under PR. The other prevalent delusion was that Clegg and fellow MPs might actually stay people of their word over a number of pre-election pledges. Now we know different.

In fact, a recent AV projection which linked their current dismal but deserved 9% popularity average with the proposed cull of 50 constituencies came to the conclusion that the Lib Dems would end up losing seats overall.

Despite recent attempts to re-ingratiate the deputy PM with the public by giving him a string of good news announcements to deliver, opinion ratings still put Clegg somewhere on a par with sheep worriers in the trustworthiness league table. Tory strategists, who purportedly dominate the No2AV camp, are convinced the Yes team has made a tactical mistake by letting Clegg front up the campaign.

A key political advisor to the No camp told journalists, “Many voters will see this as the coalition debating with itself. They will disengage”. Like others, she thinks that considerable ground can be made by capitalising on negative feelings about Clegg which will defeat the miserable little compromise – and possibly the Alternative Vote as well.

The question facing the Yes contingent, who are doubtlessly getting the same message, is what they can possibly do about it.