Clegg's supposed brilliance
Daniel Finkelstein writes about Nick Clegg's performance last night on Question Time:
Two things come out of the programme.The thing to realise about Nick Clegg is that he is simply not as good as people say he is. It's not just Question Time. On Sunday, he was interviewed by Steve Richards on GMTV. He was awful. Really, really awful. Read this transcript:The first is that it led me to question the assumption that Nick Clegg will easily defeat Chris Huhne.
The general idea is that Clegg will win because he is much better on television and a superior performer. Well maybe that's true, but I have to say it wasn't last night.
Clegg is an intelligent and charming man, which is why journalists generally like him, but he seemed lightweight and uncomfortable last night.
Steve Richards: So just to be clear about [the pupil premium], if you become leader you will propose that schools in more affluent areas lose some of their budget so poorer schools can have more.Nick Clegg: Let me be very clear. What I’m proposing is - the figure is £2.5 billion extra – extra! – there’s no taking away money from the current school budget whatsoever. Extra money, which will be allocated directly to those children. Not in terms of the areas where they live but to them, and then, if you like, the school which is educating those children gets that double amount of money in order that they can have smaller class sizes, particularly at primary school level. ….
SR: And where would that money come from? It’s a big additional spending commitment.
NC: I agree. £1.5 billion will come from taking above average families out of the tax credit system altogether. And we’ll take that £1.5 billion out of the tax credit system, or at least we’ll take families on above average income out of the tax credit system, use that money to give to the kids from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. That leaves a gap of a million… of a billion, sorry, and it would be one of the first things I would do as a leader to say to the party that we will have to find that extra billion, so that the total sum of £2.5 billion is a fixed pledge by the time we go to the country in the next general election.
SR: You’d accept that you’ve got a black hole there. You haven’t found where the money’s going to come from, the other billion.
NC: Er, yes, but I mean there are other ideas. For instance there are other ideas, I mean for instance I’ve also this week been floating ideas for how I think we should introduce a 10% tax on the non-domestic earnings of so-called ‘non-doms’. In that particular case that raises about £1 billion. I would like that to go to alleviate the burden of Council Tax on those in Band A and band B properties, those on the lower rung of the property ladder, if you like. But it’s just an example of where we can be creative in trying to find that extra money in order to fulfil that pledge, and I’m absolutely confident that we will under my leadership make that fixed pledge by the next general election.
SR: By one way or another taxing the better off, presumably. Because it has to come from somewhere.
NC: Yes, er well no, hang on, or, sorry…
SR: You said yes, so tax increase?
NC: No, no, let me correct that. I think there is plenty of scope to cut back on some of the waste in government, some of the duplication in government. I think there is a strong case to look at how government expenditure’s been duplicated in many areas. Everybody is familiar with the general degree of waste in public expenditure in the last few years, so I have given you if you like a fluctuating answer precisely because I think that I’m not fixed in my own mind about where that money would come from, but absolutely confident that with political will that money will be found.
Talk about a mess. Any halfway polished performer would have simply waved away the point about a billion pound 'black hole', either by simply insisting that there was no black hole or by pointing out that it is but a tiny proportion of spending.
Instead, Clegg not only conceded that his sums didn't add up but then got drawn into a self-destructive argument about who would pay, at first responding to Steve Richards by agreeing that a billion would have to be raised by "taxing the better off" and then, realising his mistake, fumbling and mumbling incoherently.
Given that Clegg's main selling point is supposedly his presentational brilliance, it makes you wonder if, as it was once put, there is any there, there.