Nick clegg

So now it’s the Lib Dems’ turn to present their prospectus for the country.  And, in some respects, I expect they’ll want a fairly uneventful day.  They have, after all, endured the most topsy-turvy campaign of the three main parties so far.  Brown has given us no more, and no less, than what we expected.  The Tories have been riding the crest of a national insurance wave.  But the Lib Dems have bounced around from the highs of Nick Clegg’s performance on Newsnight to the lows of their misleading VAT poster, from their continuing Labservative attacks to Ed Balls describing their schools policy as “creditable” on Sky this morning. Make

One of the key questions in any election is turnout: whose voters will turn up and whose won’t. People are clearly disappointed in the political class – on a scale from 0 to 10, trust in politicians and parties is hovering around 3 points – but does it mean that they will stay at home, spoil their ballots or opt for fringe parties and single-issue candidates? What about the talk of a hung parliament ? Will it make voters believe that their vote counts – and so bring them to the polling stations — or make them stay at home, giving up on the idea that any change is possible?

The transformation of Nick Clegg from moderate Europeanist to a populist continues apace. The Lib Dem leader is very serious about capturing the anti-politics mood among the electorate – no easy feat for some who looks as Establishment as the rest. Though he will likely be pleased with today’s Observer interview, I wonder whether he will, in retrospect, feel comfortable with his view that a small Tory majority would somehow make a Cameron government illegitimate and that Britain could be plunged into “Greek-style unrest” if cuts were introduced. Where to begin? The electoral system works the way it does. It has many inbuilt problems – particularly for the Tories –

The News of the World has its expensive and much-awaited ICM poll of the marginals tomorrow. There is some good news for Cameron, and some not-so-good news. First: 66 percent of voters in the marginals agree with the message “it’s time for change”. Bad news: a surprisingly large number think that Nick Clegg represents that change. A Lib Dem surge means that Tory swing is just 6 percent in the marginals, versus 5 percent nationally. Where is the Lord Ashcroft magic? In James’s political column this week, he says the Tories had been so confident about the marginals that they reckon they need a 5-point lead nationally to win, rather

What was probably Brown’s last PMQs performance as Prime Minister was classic Brown. He answered questions that hadn’t been asked, dodged ones that had, rattled off list after list of tractor production figures and mentioned Lord Ashcroft at every opportunity. But, as he has in recent months, he had some one liners to get off including the jab that Cameron ‘was the future once’, an echo of Cameron’s put down of Blair.   But that line couldn’t disguise the fact that Cameron got the better of Brown. Cameron’s speed on his feet just makes him better in this setting. His response to the heckle that the business leader he was

At times the chasm between Britain’s political parties is as great as the San Andreas Fault. Sometimes the difference is more like a small rift, a matter of tone not policy. In this year’s election, the difference between the parties is somewhere in between, like the lesser-known Tunnel Ridge Fault in Eastern California. In part, the appearance of only minor differences may explain why the polls are showing such different things; some predict that Labour will hang on to power, others that the Tories will be able to win. But campaigning will bring out the differences between the parties – and the party leaders – into full view to an

In this post-expenses election, there is going to be a considerable vote going for the none of the above party. The Lib Dems are clearly determined to try and tap into this vote. At PMQs in recent weeks, Nick Clegg has constantly sought to attack Labour and the Tories as different sides of the same coin. Last night in his closing statement, Vince Cable accused Labour of being ‘in hock’ to militant unions and the Tories to millionaires with their snouts in the trough. The message their trying to get across is clear: they’re both as bad as each other. Now, the Lib Dems have launched quite an effective site

Cameron was scarcely trying at PMQs today. Show up, look a bit cross, slip in a joke or two, then sit down and wait for the Budget. That was his plan. When the PM offered his congratulations on BabyCam, the opposition leader quoted a text he’d received – ‘How do you find time for these things?’ Making this wisecrack seemed more important to him than attacking the PM. His tactics were odd, out of touch, retrospective. He asked about Brown’s attempts to conceal the evidence that, as chancellor, he flogged the nation’s gold too cheaply and blew vast sums in potential profits. Brown’s bungling over the bullion billions should be

Everyone has been guessing at what Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats would do if the voters return a hung parliament after the next election. The Lib Dem leader has sent all kinds of mixed signals. But if there is one person worth listening on the party’s intentions it is Julian Astle, the head of CentreForum, Britain’s leading Liberal think-tank, and a former political advisor to Paddy Ashdown. Astle has, in recent years, acted as one of the Lib Dem’s unofficial consiglieri – but one that has never shied away from challenging party orthodoxy. He has, for example, argued against the Liberal Democrat pledge to abolish tuition fees – showing

Last week, Nick Clegg was singing the blues.  But, this week, it’s clear that he’s doing as much as possible to distinguish his party from the others.  Indeed, his performance in PMQs yesterday was a case in point: he went out of his way to attack both Brown and Cameron, and positioned his side as the non-Unite, non-Ashcroft choice.  Given the Lib Dem’s recent history with dodgy donors, that’s a move which – at the very least – is going to ruffle a few red and blue feathers. So it’s striking, today, that the Lib Dems are probably going even heavier on the Ashcroft story than Labour.  While Peter Mandelson

He did it. We saw him. It actually happened.  History was made at PMQs today as Gordon Brown finally gave a direct answer to a direct question. Not only that, he admitted he’d been wrong about something. Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) informed the PM that his assertion before the Chilcot Inquiry that defence spending has risen, in real terms, every year has been contradicted by figures released to the Commons library. Up got Brown, looking like a wounded old teddy-bear, and offered this epoch-making concession. ‘I accept that in one or two years real terms spending did not rise.’   What a union of opposites. Brown and the truth. It

Continuing the current vogue for sensible economic debate, here’s what Nick Clegg said on Radio 4 just now: ‘We’re not entering into this dutch auction about ringfencing. Good outcomes aren’t determined by drawing a redline around government departmental budgets.’ Given the current speculation about a hung parliament, you’ve got to wonder what this might mean for any potential Lib-Con partnership.  The common wisdom, almost certainly correct, is that the resulting political paralysis would sink the public finances.  But it would be intrigiuing to see if Clegg could get the Tories to tighten their fiscal plans, and perhaps even smash a few of their ringfences.