Clegg: there is no future for the Lib Dems on the left
David Blackburn 10:47am
Nick Clegg has opened the political season with a very singular statement: ‘There is no future for us as left-wing
rivals to Labour. Clegg urges his internal critics to be patient: the future could be yellow if the coalition is maintained.
It’s a gamble. Immediately, Clegg has alienated those who abandoned Labour for the Lib Dems and his explicit disavowal of ‘left-wing’ politics will have the social democratic wing of his party reaching for their hat and coats. But, Clegg has planted his colours on politics’ crowded centre ground, recasting his party’s identity as an economically liberal and socially liberal centrist movement. Bargaining that the era of majority government is over, Clegg has pitched the Liberal Democrats as a tempering influence on the excesses of left and right in government - he states that a future coalition with Labour is not of the question, providing the party has won the most votes and the most seats.
Clegg spends the rest of the interview with the Independent illustrating how he has ‘put a Lib Dem imprint’ on the government, trying to convince the bearded brigade that he is not a faceless technocrat.
"It is not a game of parallel shopping lists. What is emerging is something much more interesting – a mix, a blend of things. Of course you get tensions in a coalition and there are differences of emphasis, but we have been working incredibly hard to combine thinking on both sides." A "classic example" is an NHS policy merging Tory plans for GP commissioning with Liberal Democrat proposals to decentralise and make the service accountable to local government.’
Education reform (pupil premiums), welfare reform (incentivising work) and raising the tax threshold can be added to that list of syntheses. Naturally, Clegg hopes that university funding will follow suit, but admits he may be defeated by ‘the impracticalities’ of it all.
The Lib Dem’s polling is meagre, but five years is an eon in politics. Clegg’s plan is ambitious, but he can claim a substantial portion of the centre ground if his party doesn’t self-destruct. His task will be a lot easier if the Labour party doesn’t elect David Miliband; in fact, the implicit assumption in Clegg's statement is that Labour will lurch to the left, presumably under the younger Miliband's leadership.
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B1-66ER
September 18th, 2010 10:56am Report this comment‘There is no future for us" Would have been a more accurate statement!
Paddy Briggs
September 18th, 2010 11:12am Report this commentClegg has no mandate to shift the Party from Liberalism to Conservatism - just as he had no mandate to enter a coalition with the Tories.
Simon Stephenson
September 18th, 2010 11:14am Report this commentTony Blair Mk III then.
Question
What has any of the new breed of leader to offer the male-brained minority who do not recognise purposeful politics as being about constructing crowd-pleasing processes whose principal aim is to create a transient "hurrah", whose effectiveness beyond the immediate short-term is irrelevant, and whose unwelcome future consequences are never any reason to question the correctness of the making of the original decision.
Answer
Nothing but despair, I'm afraid.
TrevorsDen
September 18th, 2010 11:24am Report this commentIts a move the LDs need to make, they have been a repository of protest votes and for a number of different reasons. This means people from the pacifist left of the labour party and people who still believe in the free market from the left of the conservative spectrum. This inevitably makes for strange bedfellows once the party has to make real decisions in govt.
So something has to give and the pacifists have gone back to labour. The present polls simply reflect the true level of 'liberal' support.
Over the next 5 years both liberals (surely thats what they are now, no socialist element) and conservatives can show their worth by making a success of their policies. If so its Labour who will be left with its rump of self created underclass and pacifist doctrinaire left.
We should be grateful the conservatives are sitting astride the centre ground.
TrevorsDen
September 18th, 2010 11:29am Report this commentHow dumb does Mr Briggs have to be? He wants to shift the Liberal Democrats back to Liberalism. He wants to dump the socialists where they belong.
cuffleyburgers
September 18th, 2010 12:39pm Report this commentEconomic and social liberalism is incompatible with support for ever-closer european union and federalism and the totally undemocratic monstrosity that is the EU.
Clegg needs to be pulled up on this one and damned smartish.
Nicholas
September 18th, 2010 12:42pm Report this commentFunny old things the Lib Dems. In government for the first time in 70 years and some of them would still rather be in opposition. And they are dancing merrily to Labour's tune too. Labour must be very pleased that the wannabe socialists in the Lib Dems are so easily manipulated into viewing the coalition as a sell-out to the far right.
As for Paddy Briggs "no mandate to enter a coalition" - what tosh. Mr Briggs should join the Labour Party, like the other Lib Dem wolves in sheeps clothing, rather than whingeing as disgruntled Labour Lite in the wrong party. In fact just how many Labour subversives are in the Lib Dems - there to create division and unrest? Those tactics would be entirely in keeping with the ideology and objectives of that wretched national socialist gang.
I had hoped the election would be the end of Labour and leave parliament with a Tory vs Lib Dem situation. The current situation with two socialist bites of the cherry is unfortunate. I remain amazed and depressed that after 13 years of evil and incompetence Labour are still able to command such a level of support and even more so that there are very stupid people in the Lib Dems who think Labour are "progressive" and natural bedfellows (the clue is in the word "liberal", not usually associated with fascists).
Tankus
September 18th, 2010 2:48pm Report this commentNo future at all for the lib dems ...full stop ...
The coalition amply shows that the policies that they were elected on were even more irrelevant to reality than even labours... !
Just what is the point of them ?
Robert Taggart
September 18th, 2010 3:02pm Report this commentHopefully there be no future for the Left per se !
Marcher Baron
September 18th, 2010 6:58pm Report this comment"Clegg spends the rest of the interview with the Independent illustrating how he has ‘put a Lib Dem imprint’ on the government" Both of which (a coalition and a Lib Dem imprint) many people did not vote for. No wonder we feel disenfranchised.
DaProf
September 18th, 2010 8:01pm Report this commentI left Labour for the LibDems over Afghanistan and Iraq, in despair at the Blairites and the Brownites.
Betrayed by the ConDem coalition, with Nick Clegg espousing policies not in the LibDem manifesto and for which I never voted, I shall be leaving the LibDems today.
Shall I return to Labour? Despite its failings, they seem to be the only game in town.
Frank P
September 18th, 2010 8:15pm Report this commentB1-66ER
Are you the person that photo-shopped the number N1-66ER on the tail fin of the picture meme of Obama's plane Air Force One that is in email circulation at the moment? Naughty, naughty!
Frank P
September 18th, 2010 8:19pm Report this commentB1-66ER
Sorry, I meant to append the link:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/airforce-1-tail-number-hoax.shtml
Nicholas
September 18th, 2010 10:10pm Report this commentHey DaProf (Academia no doubt), yeah, piss off back to Labour "the only game in town" (for what? Bringing East Germany circa 1960 to Britain?).
People like you are a menace. I'd rather you pissed off to North Korea or Cuba.
Malcolm Redfellow
September 18th, 2010 10:39pm Report this commentConsistency is a wonderful thing:
"The Lib Dems never were and aren't a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was." [18 Sep 2010]
This should be compared to an earlier draft:
"Nick Clegg will urge voters not to sleep-walk into a Tory government as he appeals to disenchanted Labour supporters to back the Liberal Democrats instead.
"The Lib Dem leader will warn that Britain is in danger of being "taken in" by his Tory counterpart David Cameron and installing him in Downing Street by default." [Press Association, 23 September 2009]
David
September 19th, 2010 12:56am Report this commentThis is absolutely the right position for him to take.
Liberalism is not, repeat not, Labour lite.
Clegg has to explain to the voters what it is. He has to show what his party's presence has imprinted on the coalition government. I believe he can do this.
Anyone with any understanding of Liberal politics will already know this; trouble is, most voters simply think the party is a rest home for the Labour dissaffected.
Clegg needs to show that liberalism is about freedom of the individual, as opposed to the dead hand (and vested interests) of the state. It's the party of the 'little man' (and woman), against either left or right power bloc.
Good luck Nick; I thought you were a lightweight; I'm beginning to change my mind.
Arnold Peabody
September 19th, 2010 1:58am Report this commentWere were in Iraq or Afghanistan one might be forgiven for thinking the election had been rigged - Was it?
Two little boys,had two little toys, each had a "Trojan Horse" -one little boy is about to to bring down his party.
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