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Monday 21 May 2012

Operation Kneecap Clegg Begins

Thursday, 22nd April 2010

Ah, the majesty of the British press!

The Telegraph splashes on the fact that various Lib Dem donors funded a researcher and that these funds were paid into his own bank account. A curious, perhaps even sloppy, arangement that may do Clegg some damage but that does not seem to be especially venal not least beacuse the contributions were declared to the fees office and the Electoral Commission. "Stuff and nonsense" declared Paxman on Newsnight and I doubt the story, while not good for Clegg, has anything more than dwarf legs.

Then the Mail splashes on Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain as he claims 'our delusions of grandeur' at winning war are more a cross to bear than German guilt. This, dear reader, relates to a piece Clegg wrote for the Guardian in 2002 in which he recalled the embarrassment he felt on a school* exchange to Germany during which his classmates made Hitler salutes and generally acted like oafs. The Mail story is a bit like watching a Killer Whale go after a kitten and miss.

As a reader writes:

I don't know whether this would be good political strategy or not, but it sort of appeals to me in a John McCain On A Good Day way: There's a strong strand of thinking that the Tories need to not hit out at the Liberals in order to leave the door open to post-election coalition. I'm not entirely sure about that. First, I think there are weak points: there's more in the Lib Dem platform that hasn't been addressed and should be. Second, I actually think the onus is going to be on the Liberals to co-operate with the Tories, not vice versa.
But how about this: Cameron should go on the telly or the Today programme or whatever and say something like "It's come to my attention that there's been a lot of scumbag horseshit going round about Nick Clegg's family background and general loyalty to this country. This needs to stop. Nick Clegg is as British as anyone else and his family background is not an issue. I want you to vote Tory. I think the Liberals are wrong on the issues because a, b and c and we're right because x, y, z. But Nick Clegg is as loyal to this country as anyone else and people who suggest otherwise are disgracing our politics." It's the right thing to do. It would make him look good. And it represents a big of an olive branch without conceding ground to the Liberals on policy.

Arguably it also makes Clegg look good in that Cameron bigs up his character. But fuck it. I want a Tory majority but I don't want it because the Mail and the Sun have convinced people in middle England that Clegg is some sort of dago-loving, kraut-licking fifth columnist.

I suspect there's something in this and that Iain Dale is right to say that these attacks are likely to prove counter-productive. The Mail's most especially. It's so ridiculous that, if pushed, even its author might concede its absurdity. Fun to write, of course, but nonsense nonetheless and, let us be kind, of dubious honesty.

Still, welcome to the Big Leagues, Nick. These stories are a compliment to be worn with pride and not something to get too shrill or upset by.

What next, however, a Zinoviev-style letter endorsing Clegg "found in a London taxi" and "apparently" written by Osama bin Laden? Or George W Bush?

*Clegg gives the impression that the school might have been an inner-city comprehensive. Of course it was actually Westminster.

Filed under: Clegg (61 more articles) , Election 2010 (599 more articles) , Newspapers (382 more articles)

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Cuffleyburgers

April 22nd, 2010 7:48am Report this comment

Alex - you seem to have missed the point completely.

Clegg's sales pitch - his only one apart from a couple of half-decent policies pinched from the Tories - is the "new politics", above all the sleaze, dodgy personal accounting, brown envelopes, dubious donors; we all know it's horseshit, but the public bless'em seem temporarily to have fallen for it.

It is only right that information which torpedoes this ridiculous conceit is made public as noisily as possible.

Idem his attitudes to Europe. He is a fundamentalist federast. If he were to become foreign secretary he would do for our sovereignty what Brown has done to the economy. This article taken in context might seem innocuous, but it is also revealing (if hardly surprising, other than by its stupidity and poor judgement).

As you rightly say - Clegg, welcome to the big league. But this is the kind of scrutiny Cameron for example has been under for years, and so far they have only unearthed a photo of him in the Bullingdon club.

Hardly compares with Clegg's skeletons.

Chris

April 22nd, 2010 8:16am Report this comment

@Coffeyburgers

'federast' - My that's clever. I can see what you've done. You made it sound a bit like 'pederast'. It must be such fun in your house, with all this devastating wit.

Cuffleyburgers

April 22nd, 2010 11:10am Report this comment

Chris - you clearly cread the wrong sort of blogs if this is the first time you have come across this word.

But anyway, penetrating and incisive comment and argument - not.

Arse.

Ben G

April 22nd, 2010 11:31am Report this comment

If Clegg's clever he'll turn this to his advantage as part of his insurgent campaign.

A vote for Clegg, he should say, is a sod-you to old politics, the bankers, and 'the press'.

(And while I'm here, also to people who take offence at comment responses on blogs...).

Cuffleyburgers

April 22nd, 2010 1:59pm Report this comment

@ Ben G.

I presume you mean me. I haven't taken offence, I 'm just miffed that our friend Chris focussed on the F word rather than my brilliant one liner about Clegg, which I repeat for your benefit and also for Mr Cameron in the hope he'll use it tonight:

"If he were to become foreign secretary he would do for our sovereignty what Brown has done to the economy"

My dog liked it anyway and wagged his tail enthusiastically when I repeated it.

Sir Graphus

April 22nd, 2010 3:51pm Report this comment

Some of it is pretty distasteful. But Clegg started it. He stood up and said "trust me, I'm a different type of politician, not like the other two; clean as a whistle, me".

It's the duty of the press to examine whether the claim of any politician is true.

Lobbyist, MEP, no proper job on CV, doesn't sound very new and fresh to me. And there is something really odd about paying money directly into one's own account. Like Father Ted always maintained, "that money was just resting in my account."

Patricia Shaw

April 22nd, 2010 4:17pm Report this comment

Telegraph has sunk to Murdoch levels
Character assassination of the worst order.
Really poor.

logdon

April 22nd, 2010 5:23pm Report this comment

I wish the naysayers would grow a spine, or at least enter the real world.

Labour are desperate. Clegg, himself has said it. Like cornered dogs they will do anything and Mandelson is now in wartime mode, busy preparing his vitriolic poisonous cocktail's of slime on a 24/7 basis.

OK, Cameron may not be everyone on this blog's cup of tea but he's our last bulwark against an overweening socialist, dictatorial tide which would make the last five years look like a democratic utopia.

Those are the stakes.

Wishy washy won't do and the days of gentlemanly politics are long over, demolished by the likes and lies of the besuited barrowboy brigade of Mandelson, Wheelan, Campbell and above all the completely amoral Brown.

They are finished and are now supporting Clegg in a last ditch effort to keep the Tories out.

Hence Mandy's indecent haste in his rush to call foul in his pathetic support of his new best friend.

Clegg tried the purer than pure and he's been caught out. Simple. It's what we pay our media to do.

Nitpicking about nitpicking is still, nitpicking no matter how self regardingly noble these people attempt in their pose and posture.