Clegg and the Compost Accelerator

Nick Cohen on scathing form on The Strange Death of Liberal England (Again) in the forthcoming Spectator (it is not online, but there is more via Alex Massie here):

The Liberals have no right to be surprised. Conservative-minded readers may think that the British liberal-left is good for nothing, but, trust me, we are world leaders when it comes to the vituperative art of denouncing sellouts. The Liberals ought to have known it, because they more than anyone else revelled in deploying the wild language of betrayal against Tony Blair. He had taken Britain to an ‘illegal’ war, they claimed, although no court ever said it was unlawful; he was a ‘liar’ who had knowingly sent British troops to their deaths on a false premise. Now, from Islington to Didsbury, from the BBC to the Guardian, the cry of betrayal the Liberals once directed against Blair is directed against them. The only discernible difference is that it took a decade for Blair to go from being the fresh leader of 1994 to the B:Liar of 2004. In the case of Clegg, it is as if someone has thrown compost accelerator over him, speeding up the process of degeneration from hope to has-been from ten years to ten months.

Cohen shares my view that the Liberal Democrats are doomed. David Aaronovitch in tomorrow’s Times (pay wall) does not. Both sides in this debate portray themselves as daring hold-outs against the prevailing orthodoxy.

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  Does that mean the prevailing orthodoxy is that they’ll just struggle on for years? I suspect that’s right, actually.

  Come to think of it, the prevailing orthodoxy among columnists is to stand bravely against the prevailing orthodoxy, so it may just be too meta overall.

• JonBW

  I thought that the prevailing orthodoxy was that we should all vote for AV and hand Clegg a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

  What I find amazing is that nobody in the world of political journalism saw this coming; the coup d’etat against poor old Ming Campbell marked a decisive shift in the balance of power in the LD Party, and from that point on, coalition with the Tories was always the likely outcome of a hung parliament.

  Clegg could argue (if he was brave enough to risk alienating a chunk of his own support) that he’s not betrayed his principles at all; he was always of the Liberal Right rather than the Centre Left and has acted entirely consistently. It’s not his fault that some gullible left liberals thought that he was on their side of the fence.

• popskihaynes

  I’m not sure that the Liberals are doomed and frankly it is far too early to say either way, this is a story to excite journalists more than their readers. It is obvious that the Coalition will become very unpopular during this year and most of next as the required “cuts, tax and price hikes etc” kick in but that would be true of any Government of any political hue given the current circumstances.

  The reality is that if both Coalition members continue to hold their nerve and by 2012/13 economically things start to look better, it becomes a different game. Also and as importantly, whilst I am sure that Labour will win a by-election in a Labour seat, a Donkey in a Labour rosette would, overall they are not doing very well at all lacking in both policies and leadership.

  Whilst Labour are polling well, how significant at this stage of a Parliament is that ? Not much I suspect and I would speculate further that if the May Election was run again today, the result wouldn’t be that much different, the LibDems may get squeezed but all that would mean is that Cameron would have a Conservative majority.

  When push comes to shove, I don’t think that the electorate would let Labour back in right now because even the most ardent Labour supporter would have to admit, Labour is not yet ready to govern, they are in no shape to do so and that needs fixing first, the state of the LibDems is less relevant to Labour than the state of Labour itself. In fact, LibDem unpopularity is of no use to Labour because all it will do is cement the LibDems into Coalition and lock Labour out from any hope of power in the foreseeable future.

  From a Labour Party perspective, when they can rediscover ‘what Labour is for’, they need to shape policies which might seduce LibDem support rather than attack them.

• http://about-whose-news.blogspot.com/ Brian Hughes

  I wouldn’t waste my compost accelerator on Mr Clegg. Imagine the impact the output might have on your climbers. They’d appear to be spinning to the left whilst all the time twining to the right.

  I blame Jo Grimond.

• http://twitter.com/Broxted Ciaran Rehill

  No court found him guilty? That would be the rich, white, public school Oxbridge courts where both rich and poor alike can starve? As for Times (paywall) is it better or worse than Indy (censored)?

• crossceltic

  The LDs knew very quickly that the very pleasant Ming was too weak and frail looking in front of the cameras, sad but fact. They had to do something although it was most unpleasant, that is the nasty side of politics. You have to look strong and electable. Survival of the fittest and all that.

  Nick Clegg was duped by Huhne quickly standing for election for the leadership – he was told (and believed it) by Huhne that he would not stand. He was was late to the starting gate and had to do catch-up. He is not a cunning man whatever else he is. Many activists were unaware of his involvement with Tories at University, I can assure you. There are many Oxbridge types in all parties. Did he mix easily with Tories? Yes – he and his wife worked for them over in Bruseels. We should have seen the warning signs. Too Liberal.
  Another tell-tale sign was that disaffected Tories in local parties were being absorbed into the party more readily.

  They have to go the full stretch, and hope that they can offer a bit of jam tomorrow in time for the next election otherwise they are well and truly finished.