Tuesday, August 5, 2008

What has Nick Clegg done for us?

Unlike Jonathan Calder, I am motivated to disagree with James Graham's piece on Comment is Free about Nick Clegg.

James starts by saying that Nick has done quite well in the polls, with his tax cut pledge and with his summer message.

He then goes on to criticise the man.

Well, hold on a cotton picking moment. That's like "What did the Romans do for us?"

Nick Clegg has faced a huge battle to reverse the downward drift of the party in the polls. For a year no one in the party was able to release the secret that we want to reduce the basic rate of income tax by four pence - but Nick has found a way to get that over to the public through the "Make it happen" package. Then came the very welcome summer message of strategically shifting resources to seats where we challenge Labour.

Just hold on a bit and breathe, James. Those are drains, central heating and roads-type achievements!

Can I just say that I am very impressed with Nick Clegg as leader? I think he is an exciting and intelligent thinker and an earnest leader who deserves our full support. In the many conversations I have had recently with activists, candidates and councillors, I have found no one who has voiced dissatisfaction with his leadership. Many have expressed relief that our leadership is no longer an issue in the media. The days of the zimmer frame cartoons have gone. We have a young, vibrant and positive leader. I have certainly noticed how we managed to keep ourselves in the media day after day. It is a very welcome turn of events.

And hey - look at me! I supported Chris Huhne for the leadership. James supported Clegg for the leadership. Perhaps one of the problems here is that of expectations. There were many in the party who hyped Clegg up to be the Messiah (I don't include James in that category, by the way - he was very cautious in his support for Clegg) and who seemed to believe their own hype. Now they seem disappointed. Then there are those like myself who voted for Huhne and weren't sold on the Clegg hype. Now we seem to be the ones who are pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the Clegg hypers should lie in the bed they have made for themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I accept that James has heard from "demoralised" or "disenchanted" activists and applaud him for speaking up on their behalf. I just think we need to get things into perspective. If Chris Huhne had won we'd be sitting here with a different set of problems - dare I say it, perhaps even a worse set of problems.

Chris Huhne would certainly have handled the Lisbon treaty exactly the same way as Clegg (perhaps with the odd tactical tweak) - he said as much in the campaign. And I note that James Graham brilliantly exposed the lie that the Lisbon Treaty was in any way a constitution. From that I conclude that there was no reneging of our manifesto commitment. I also note that Ashdown had the same type of episode over Maastricht.

Internal communication. I am not sure what briefing notes came out before "Make it happen". But if any PPC cannot extemporise a selling pitch for such a brilliant document, then they don't deserve to be a PPC. Are all our candidates wet? Of course, not.

The Bones commission. We get someone from the Henley Management College to look at our organisation. They're used to looking at businesses, among other organisations. Well, knock me down with a feather. They come back and tell us that we need to centralise our decision-making a bit. Staggering. What did people expect? That they would come back and say that we needed to make our decision making more democratic? Get a few more people involved? I agree with the scepticism about the proposals - whatever they are. But I agree that it was right to have such a commission. Clegg is not stupid to enough to think he can steam-roller through such proposals as the chief officers group.

Haltemprice and Howden. James Graham is factually wrong about this. Liberal Action has corrected him.

Finally, I am just a bit uncomfortable about the medium through which James is telling us about all this dissatisfaction. To put it bluntly: Did James sex up his message to provide some interesting copy for "Comment is Free" ? I don't criticise him for doing this. I greatly respect James. It just leaves a little doubt in the back of one's mind.

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