James Forsyth James Forsyth

Two weeks to save the Conservative party

The Nick Clegg bubble has been caused by the mistaken view that he is not a machine politician, says James Forsyth. But if this bubble doesn’t burst before polling day, then it could be the end of the Tory party as we know it

The Nick Clegg bubble has been caused by the mistaken view that he is not a machine politician, says James Forsyth. But if this bubble doesn’t burst before polling day, then it could be the end of the Tory party as we know it

Both Andy Coulson and the gaggle of journalists surrounding him agreed that there had been ‘no game-changer’ in the first leaders’ debate. As the Tory communications chief, it’s his job to be optimistic — but this was not spin. He believed it. And so did most of the Westminster insiders, who gave the debate to Clegg on points but thought there was no moment in the 90 minutes that was going to transform the campaign. Even in the bar afterwards, if anyone had suggested that Clegg’s party would soon be leading in the polls, their drink would have been taken away and a taxi called.

How wrong we were. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats surged in the polls in the coming days; the rest threatens to be history. What we had all underestimated was the evidence under our noses, that the single biggest force in British politics right now is anti-politics. And this amorphous movement had found a hero that night in Mr Clegg. Not because he was an inspiring figure, but because voting for him seemed to the most effective way of bringing down the whole Westminster system — which is why warning that a vote for Clegg will result in chaos is a self-defeating strategy.

If anti-politics is to win the coming general election, then it will be fairly easy to chart its rise. The ‘others’ mentioned in the opinion polls have been steadily making headway over the years while the two main parties lost 7.3 million votes between 1992 and 2005. The sense of alimentations and distrust has massively increased because of the MPs’ expenses scandal — and the economic crisis, which exposed our politicians as useless fiscal watchdogs.

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