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The abdication of leadership
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The loser tendency
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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Clegg's bottle

Daniel Finkelstein makes some interesting comments regarding the new Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg:

When Mr Clegg picked up his Liberal Leader of the week trophy the other day he set himself three tasks. He said he would unite his party, be ambitious to win and listen to voters.

These are all bad ideas. They sound good. But they aren't.

What Nick Clegg should do is come out with sharp ideas on choice and reform that his party will find difficult to swallow and then battle through to an impresive victory over his internal critics.

These ideas should have strong appeal to some even if that group is limited in size. He should use the fact that the Libs can't win a majority, treating minority status as an asset rather than a problem.

And he should challenge voters, winning them round through argument rather than simply responding to their whims.

I am sure he has the intelligence, imagination and charm to make such a strategy work.

But does he have the bottle?

The whereabouts and capacity of Nick Clegg's bottle is the key question. Although he has universally been applauded for being an intelligent, amiable and sensible chap, he has nevertheless been outflanked both by his opponent in the leadership election Chris Huhne, whose dynamic campaign managed almost to offset a lunatic set of policy proposals and the negative publicity which attended some of his more dubious campaign tactics, and by the interim leader Vince Cable, whose bravura performance especially at PMQs set a very high standard for Mr Clegg to match.

Wisely, he has kept Messrs Huhne and Cable in high profile positions in his new front bench team. Less wisely, he has chosen to appoint an adviser on how to reconnect with the youth vote who is almost as old as Sir Menzies Campbell. While we do not doubt the sincerity or capability of Mr Brian Eno, if this is the best that Nick Clegg can do in the circumstances, these must be very lean times indeed for the Lib Dems.

Anyway, back to Daniel Finkelstein. Both of the main political parties are straining every muscle to be seen to listen to voters. Well, actually the Labour Party is doing no such thing, although it would very much like us to think so. The Tories have parked themselves determinedly in the political centre and will not be shifted come what may, especially not now that the polls have finally turned in their favour. Nick Clegg leads a party which has manoeuvred itself out to the left of Labour, and desperately needs a route back to its traditional centrist position. The trouble is, that its territory has now been occupied by others.

There is, nevertheless, room for a political party which is serious about breaking new ground on public service reform, which is serious about individual freedom and the long term health of "liberal democracy" in the broadest sense of the term. Does Nick Clegg have the courage to move in this direction? We very much hope so. We would love him to join us.

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Clegg's bottle