Nick ‘the fibber’ Clegg faces the fibbed-to

Trying out new career options on LBC this morning, Nick Clegg inadvertently illustrated several serious political truths.

A caller claimed to have been a member of the ‘Liberal Democrat’ party – indeed an ex county-councillor in Surrey.  But he said that he had recently ripped up his party membership card.  Happily, however, he proceeded to read from it.

Before this morning I had never heard anyone recite this hilarious document.  But if the caller was telling the truth the card says:

‘The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.’

The caller wanted to know how Mr Clegg was able to ‘reconcile’ what his party’s membership card says with what the ex-councillor depicted as this government’s ‘attacks’ on ‘the poorest in society including the unemployed, the working poor and the disabled.’  It was a beautiful moment where two delusionists met: the fibbed-to finally faced the fibber.

Throughout his political career Mr Clegg told the public what he thought they needed to hear.  Thus he is in no position to start telling truths now.  The flip-side is that anybody who has listened to him in the past is likely to be less capable of receiving truths now, even – or perhaps especially – if they are uttered by Mr Clegg.

What the caller needed to be told was what Chancellor Merkel said a recent interview:

‘If Europe today accounts for just over 7 percent of the world’s population, produces around 25 percent of global GDP and has to finance 50 percent of global social spending, then it’s obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and way of life.