The last Prime Ministerial debate was by far the liveliest and best. The debates have generally been an excellent innovation. They have generated huge public interest and will, I feel sure, form a permanent feature of general election campaigns.
Nick Clegg, to his credit, answered the question I posited in my last blog post. He informed the audience in unequivocal terms that he is “not advocating entry into the Euro”.
So how much else of the Lib Dem manifesto should we ignore?
Final Prime Ministerial debate tonight, this time on the economy.
The crisis in Greece and its knock-on effect throughout the Eurozone will inevitably overshadow the event.
The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto has this to say on the Euro:
We believe that it is in Britain’s long-term interest to be part of the euro. But Britain should only join when the economic conditions are right, and in the present economic situation, they are not.
It will be fascinating to hear Mr Clegg explaining precisely why he considers it to be in our national interest to join the single currency and when he anticipates the time will be right to do so.
The desperation now gripping the Labour party is clearly highlighted in an interview with the Prime Minister in today’s Independent:
Gordon Brown appealed yesterday for a “progressive alliance” of natural Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters to join forces to keep the Conservative Party out of power… He revealed a rethink in Labour’s strategy in which the party will try to sell its sweeping constitutional reforms to highlight common ground with the Liberal Democrats and convince voters that it can still offer change after 13 years in power.
This new enthusiasm on the PM’s part for bipartisan politics will cause raised eyebrows among those who, like me, have sat through Prime Minister’s Questions for the last two and a bit years and observed Brown reserve his most scathingly contemptuous criticism for the Lib Dems, a party he clearly despises, to the extent that he pointedly refuses to use their correct title, instead always referring to them as “the Liberal party”.
So why, one wonders, this sudden cosying-up? It’s strangely reminiscent of Mrs Merton’s penetrating question to Debbie McGee:
“So, Debbie, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
I clearly have not been paying sufficient attention, but I did not realise until yesterday’s leaders’ debate that the Lib Dems have a regionalised immigration policy.
This means that if, for example, there is a need for an immigrant’s skills in Inverness, the immigrant will be allowed into the country on the basis, presumably, that he may work only in Inverness.
Sounds reasonable at first blush, but what would happen if the job in Inverness disappeared? Would the immigrant be allowed to move to London, or would he be sent home? Would there be an internal passport system that applied to immigrants only, with an appropriate bureaucracy to enforce it?
Like many Lib Dem bright ideas, the policy is incoherent; I trust the media will press Mr Clegg on it.
Tonight’s Lib Dem election broadcast was an arty-farty little number, showing Nick Clegg talking portentously into camera while walking through a variety of urban and rural locations strewn with scattered A4 sheets, apparently intended to represent broken election promises.
At one point, Clegg earnestly assured the viewer that the Lib Dems intend to ensure that “the polluter pays”.
I trust that the promise applies to the Lib Dems themselves and that a suitable cheque has been sent to, among others, the London Borough of Wandsworth.
After years of having their logo mocked as “the dead parrot”, I’m not sure why the LibDems thought it a good idea to adopt a banana as their general election emblem.
More appropriate for David Miliband’s Labour leadership campaign, one would think.
Yesterday, I wound up for the Opposition in the annual St David’s Day debate in the Commons. The debate was opened by Peter Hain, who spent most of his time denigrating the Tories; he must be deeply worried, which pleases me greatly.
An intriguing moment came when the veteran Labour Member, Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley), spoke about her early days in Parliament:
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab): I first became an elected Member in 1979, when the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) was in Brecon and Radnorshire, which was in my European constituency. I hope that I do not embarrass him, but I was very grateful for his help at that time. We remain good friends, even though we are on opposite sides of the Chamber, and I hope that he might help me in other campaigns some time in the future.
Roger Williams, the MP for Brecon and Radnorshire, turned scarlet.
“Were you one of them, Roger?” asked Cheryl Gillan, but received no answer.
So was Roger a Labour supporter? Perhaps a reader knows the answer.
Posted in Cheryl Gillan, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Peter Hain, Roger Williams
Tagged Politics
Labour is not the only party falling to bits in Westminster.
Today the Draft Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2009 went through committee; I had the privilege of leading for Her Majesty’s loyal opposition.
Now, I know that the Order wasn’t the most riveting piece of Parliamentary business ever (even as I type those words I’m bracing myself for the inevitable wrath of Gwenda Thomas), but you’d have thought that both the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru would be sufficiently interested to go to the trouble of sending someone along.
Those empty seats really didn’t look good.
In his speech to the Liberal Democrats’ conference yesterday, Nick Clegg declared his ambition of becoming Prime Minister. This has provoked a certain amount of hilarity in certain parts of the blogosphere, in which I, for one, do not intend to join. There can be no higher ambition for any politician, Lib Dem or otherwise, than to become the leader of his country’s government; and a politician without ambition is of no use to his electorate. So I won’t criticise Nick Clegg for that.
However, Clegg’s speech was unlikely to advance his hoped-for progress toward the door of No 10. Strangely, it directed much of its fire on the Conservatives, apparently oblivious of the fact that it is Labour who are in government; Gordon Brown was mentioned only four times.
Clegg, in short, failed to focus on the right target: the discredited Labour party, whose disaffected voters the Lib Dems, as a party of the centre left, should be actively and determinedly courting. By attacking the Tories instead, Clegg succeeded only in making himself look weak, defensive and lacking in confidence.
And, regrettably, the speech was altogether a rather lacklustre affair. Where was the passion? Where was the energy? Where was the raw anger at what Labour have done to this country? Where was the hunger to make things better? If the Lib Dems consider themselves to be a progressive party, where was Clegg’s vision of progress?
If Nick Clegg really is ambitious for himself, his party and his country, he needs to do much better than this.
For fifty minutes yesterday afternoon, he had his big chance, centre stage, to explain to the nation precisely how he proposes to realise his wholly laudable ambition.
Sadly for him, he blew it.
Speaking of the Guardian poll, there is little that emerges from it to cheer the Liberal Democrats as their Bournemouth conference draws to a close.
Run the poll’s findings through Electoral Calculus and you will find that it predicts a net loss of 26 seats for the Lib Dems, including two in Wales.
Lib Dem election planners may consequently decide that it would be better for them to seek to benefit from the collapse in support for Labour, rather than try to shore up seats under attack from the Tories.
If they do, Mr Clegg will have to adopt a change in rhetoric; calling David Cameron a conman won’t help in vulnerable Labour seats such as Liverpool Wavertree, where, on BBC Breakfast this morning, one lady who was shown a picture of the Lib Dem leader thought he was Peter Mandelson.
Posted in general election, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson
Tagged Politics
On Saturday, Nick Clegg told the Guardian that “bold and even ‘savage’ cuts in government spending will be necessary to bring the public deficit down after the next election”.
The word “savage” appears to have caused considerable alarm among senior Lib Dem figures; according to today’s Times:
They believe that the party’s rhetoric on public spending cuts should be closer to that of Labour, which is promising to cut “more kindly” than the Tories.
Asked by the Times whether he would use the word again, Clegg replied:
“I don’t have a timetable. The debate is changing very fast and I’m not resiling from a strategy where we are being very candid.”
Good to have that cleared up so unequivocally.
Speaking of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg is apparently due to tell delegates at his party’s conference:
“If you want things to be different, really different, you have to choose different. That’s our message.”
Unfortunately, in Wales, that’s Plaid Cymru’s message, too.
I am rather disappointed in Nick Clegg, who has always come across as a courteous, mannerly politician. Apparently, at the Lib Dem conference later today, Mr Clegg intends to call David Cameron a “phoney” and a “conman”.
Whilst understanding that many members of Mr Clegg’s parliamentary party are most at risk from Conservative challengers – a matter that must be causing him considerable concern – I think it unlikely that voters will respond positively to a political message founded on personal abuse. Mr Clegg can do much better than that.
At the Conservatives’ previous high-water mark in 1983, the party famously gained 14 of the then 38 Welsh constituencies – “one short of a rugby team”.
At the Welsh party conference last March, I said that at the next general election we should aim for a full rugby team, with a couple of substitutes besides.
On the basis of tonight’s results, I am optimistic that we may achieve that ambition. Translated to individual constituencies, the outcome was as follows:
Conservative: 17
Labour: 15
Plaid Cymru: 7
Lib Dem: 1
Posted in Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru
Tagged Politics
Today’s Telegraph reports that Gordon Brown is planning a “game-changing” move immediately after the Euro elections later this week by inviting the Liberal Democrats into Government.
Given current political climate, it is unlikely that the Lib Dems, notwithstanding their traditional predilection for political accommodations, would accept. An ICM poll, also in today’s Telegraph, shows that the Lib Dems have now overtaken Labour in general election voting intentions; they are on 25 per cent, as against Labour’s 22 and the Tories’ 40 per cent.
Running this through Electoral Calculus, this would give the Conservatives 376, Labour 161 and the Lib Dems 82 seats respectively. In other words, the Lib Dems, on present voting intentions, would stand to gain an additional 15 seats.
What on earth, in the circumstances, would be the benefit to Nick Clegg of hitching his wagon to Gordon Brown’s falling star? The Labour brand is now so toxic that even the very loosest of coalitions would be sure to contaminate any party that was associated with it.
If, therefore, there is any substance whatever to the Telegraph’s story, it serves only to illustrate still further the Prime Minister’s increasingly worrying detachment from reality.
