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Saturday 21 November 2009

Wednesday, 1st April 2009

Clegg's Obama regret?

James Forsyth 2:40pm

There’s a hilarious item in Richard Kay’s diary today about Nick Clegg—and it isn’t an April Fool. Here are the key quotes:

"'I am really annoyed,' [Clegg] told me. 'As it was not a state visit I understood I wouldn't get to see [Obama]. But when I found out Obama was meeting the Queen and David Cameron I got on the phone to David Miliband to ask him what was going on.
'Frankly, it doesn't look good for Cameron to see him and for me not to.'
…
At one point he turned to Cable and told him: 'If I do get to go, I will give Obama a copy of your book.'"

Clegg’s office says that Clegg did not speak to Richard Kay. They also emphatically deny that he has called Miliband to try and get in to see Obama. In a way, what is surprising is that, when Obama announced his intention to meet with Cameron, the government didn’t try and get him to meet with Clegg as well to dilute the impact of the Cameron-Obama meeting.

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Original Tony

April 1st, 2009 3:43pm Report this comment

What's the point of Clegg seeing Obama? He has less influence than the Mayor of London and will never be PM.

One has to get rid of one's toy soldiers and marbles to play with the big boys

richard kay

April 1st, 2009 3:55pm Report this comment

Not true, James. Clegg spoke to Alan Davidson, who works for the Diary, at Vince Cable's book launch last night.

James Forsyth

April 1st, 2009 4:00pm Report this comment

Richard, Glad to take your word for it. It is a great story. Clegg's office are clearly being a bit too emphatic. Best, James

David Ossitt

April 1st, 2009 4:47pm Report this comment

I feel very sorry for Nick Clegg; as I have for all of the previous leaders of his party and before that, for all of those poor unfortunate deluded men who led the Liberal Party.

I say deluded because they truly are; in their little world they are always on the verg of a breakthrough, a breakthrough were they can have a casting vote to decide which of the two real parties will form a goverment, where they can then demand that there be changes to our electoral system as the price to be paid for their favours.

In our two party system they are an anachronism.

in exchange for their support.

seb2

April 1st, 2009 4:54pm Report this comment

Im not suprised downing street didnt try to stop it. Probably hoping for another "light-weight" assessment of Cameron from Obama.

Non Gradus Anus Rodentum

April 1st, 2009 5:17pm Report this comment

I'm surprising the LibDems didn't burrow a hole in the roof of the 'Messiah's' room and lower Clegg down inside to meet him - just like they did with the cripple who wanted to see Jesus.

Frank P

April 1st, 2009 5:20pm Report this comment

This clamour to kiss Obama's ass is disgusting; what a nation we have now become! Roll up the red carpet and tell this wooden mouthpiece of multi-mobbery and neo-Marxist thuggery to piss off back to corrupt Chicago where he belongs with his shyster sidekicks and backers. Cameron should have either given him the cold shoulder, or a bollocking, for trying to jig up another Ponzi scam with yet another socialist sub-agenda; if Cameron has anything in common with him and his henchman/wimmin then the Tories have the wrong leader. As for Richard Kay and the juvenile Clegg: two further examples of national decline! Except in their case they are risible rather than dangerous.

How my heart aches for what once was and will never be again.

England O England
Why have we failed you?
Betrayed your dead heroes;
Squandered their blood and
Dishonoured their sacrifice?
Shame on a craven generation
Of destructive decadence.
Lower the Royal Standard.
Beat the Retreat.
Dissolve into deep disgrace
And demeaning Dhimmitude...
We are done for!

mac

April 1st, 2009 5:29pm Report this comment

'Frankly, it doesn't look good for Cameron to see him and for me not to.'

Nice one for April Fool's Day, Cleggie, but it lacks the laugh-out-loud quality of the Steely injunction to "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government."

Steve.W

April 1st, 2009 5:32pm Report this comment

Original Tony - What's the point of Clegg?!

mac

April 1st, 2009 5:35pm Report this comment

seb2:

Good thinking opting for a 3-letter moniker given yesterday's spelling challenge of "Harmen_pride".

Nicholas

April 1st, 2009 5:53pm Report this comment

Well said Frank P. A masterful pen picture of the celebrity president culminating in a lament I share.

But now is not the time to lower standards or beat the retreat. Right thinking conservatives need to take the fight to the enemy. Never say die for truth will out.

Denis Cooper

April 1st, 2009 5:58pm Report this comment

"In our two party system they are an anachronism."

Maybe it's the two party system which is the anachronism.

Or maybe it's just that the two main parties are both anachronisms.

I don't see how we can carry on with a system which allows one party to form an elected dictatorship, with inadequate and diminishing domestic restraints on its overweening power, and then eventually, when the electorate finally decides that they've done enough damage to the country, they're kicked out and the other party forms an elected dictatorship, and so on ...

If we're going to have a duopoly, it should be a genuine duopoly with a continuous contest between two alternatives, not a monopoly which periodically alternates between them.