Over at LabourList, Nick Clegg pens a powerful post in favour of the strides taken in recent years to enshrine equal rights for gay people. Here’s an excerpt:

Like many people, in 1997 I hoped that with the right cast into the political wilderness a permanent victory for gay rights was in sight. But discrimination still lingers in the statute book, and homophobia still festers in homes, offices and classrooms. Gay rights, like all minority rights, should by now have become unquestionable. But in practice they are still too often treated like privileges, falling in and out of favour with politicians.

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Apologies, dear reader, but I’ve been busy at work rather than watching Prime Minister’s Questions (so that you don’t have to). I will catch up with it later, but I have read the Hansard transcript. And if today’s PMQs is remembered for anything, I suspect it will be for this quite sublime Prime Ministerial line:

… total spending will continue to rise, and it will be a zero per cent. rise in 2013–14.

Yes, you read that right: 0% counts as a rise in total spending in Gordon Brown’s eyes. The Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh (admittedly not a Labour cheerleader) sums up his performance today:

It was worse than that: it was bad in an inept, jaded, so-grey-I-make-John-Major-look-colourful kinda way. This was a man with the stench of decay around him.

Don’t forget that the economy and figures are supposed to be Brown’s strong suit. If he turns in a performance like this, it suggests that the only real reason for keeping him – namely a possible economic recovery for which he will claim credit – is disappearing fast.

If I were a Labour backbencher watching today, I would have my head in my hands.

That’s certainly how it read.

When Nick Clegg’s turn came, he also asked about public spending, linking the issue (in his supplementary) to his newly-adopted policy of scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons system. It was in his first question, though, that I think Nick did best, skewering the tortured efforts of both the Labour and Tory parties to avoid levelling with the British public how they will respond to the economics of recession. Full Hansard transcript of Nick’s exchanges with Gordon follow:

Gordon Brown yesterday set out his policy plans for the next year, with headline proposals including:

Here’s the Hansard transcript of how Nick Clegg responded for the Lib Dems:

Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): The Prime Minister and the leader of the Conservatives have just perfected their fake debate on public spending, yet both are treating voters as if they are children, too young to know the truth. This morning, the Government have reneged on their promise to hold a comprehensive spending review before the next election, and the Conservatives are not going to decide on their cuts until the day after it. Neither is willing to come clean on the difficult long-term savings we will need to make to balance the nation’s books. It is like a big hoax—they trade insults and numbers, but hide the truth.

There are some announcements—or, rather, re-announcements—that I welcome, not least the ongoing consultation to give local authorities control over housing rents and revenues, the proposals for an elected House of Lords and the commitment to give all young people under 25 a guaranteed job or training place. As ever, however, the devil will be in the detail. This is the 11th announcement on housing since September. The Government’s consultation on housing revenue has been grinding on since January, yet 1.8 million people are still waiting for a decent home.

We have been debating reform of the House of Lords—the other place—for more than a century, so now is the time for action, not simply more proposals. The Prime Minister is still silent on some of the wider more radical political reforms we need to clean up British politics once and for all. The hopes of young people to avoid the scrapheap of long-term unemployment must not be dashed in practice once again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have the first constituency poll of the Norwich North by-election campaign, and it shows a close contest in store. Before I give you the figures, though, it should come with two big health warnings. First, the poll’s sample size is very small – 500 overall, and fewer than 300 for the voting figures. Secondly, polls this early in a by-election campaign, and when a polling date isn’t yet known, have proven unreliable predictors in the past. With those caveats firmly in place, here it is (comparisons with 2005 general election result in brackets):

Tories 34%(+1), Labour 30%(-15),

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Over at the Financial Times, there’s a feature interview with Nick Clegg (he’s certainly getting about this week). The opening two paragraphs give a flavour:

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, believes his party can overtake Labour at the next election, as “big things can happen” when a government is defeated in the battle of ideas and loses touch with the public.

In a bullishly confident interview, Mr Clegg said on Tuesday it was “not beyond the realms of possibility” that his party could push Labour into third place and become the official opposition to a David Cameron government.

Asked …

2 big stories

As any fule kno, the chair of the Iraq enquiry Sir John Chilcot has ruled that as a default all evidence should be given to the enquiry in public. He has also indicated that he will be calling Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to give evidence. From the Guardian:

The move to open up his hearings, which came on the eve of a Commons debate tomorrow on the inquiry, shows that a wholesale change of the terms has been carried out since the inquiry was established by the prime minister last week. The decision to summon Brown and Blair for public hearings was disclosed by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, who met Chilcot today on privy council terms. Chilcott held a separate meeting with David Cameron on the same terms.

A week ago, Nick Clegg announced his decision to become the first mainstream party leader to declare openly his opposition to the UK renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent: “the world has changed, the facts have changed, you’ve got to change with them. So like-for-like replacement for Trident is just not right.”

We asked LDV readers to tell us what you thought of the Lib Dem leader’s change of heart (in the 2007 leadership campaign he clashed with Chris Huhne on the issue, arguing the UK should wait until the 2010 non-proliferation talks before deciding whether or not to renew). The …

For four mornings this week, LDV will be bringing you audio recordings of the proceedings at ALDC’s Local Solutions conference for Lib Dem councillors. One of the features of this event is to cram in as much as possible – including training sessions clashing with plenary sessions, which means many attendees themselves may not have heard the plenary. First up this morning is Saturday’s early morning session with party leader Nick Clegg MP and party president Baroness Ros Scott.

You can listen to …

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:06 — 63.3MB)

PR Week has a piece comparing the online strategies of the UK’s three main political parties. With a nod or two towards Obama’s use of social media, the article presents a report card on each party, compiled by their panel of experts.

Each party is examined on its approach, key players, leader and the involvement of MPs and grassroots.

The Conservatives are found to have “attracted the most plaudits so far,” while Labour’s “command and control mentality” is said to be hampering their efforts.

The verdict on the Liberal Democrats is that our “overall understanding of social media is impressive” but that …

2 big stories

No prizes for guessing it’s Iran above the fold again today. After ruling out a votes recount, the ruling forces had this to say, which is of some interest to anyone who gets their political news online:

Following a crackdown on the foreign press, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force, warned online media of similar treatment over their coverage of the country’s election crisis.

In its first statement since the crisis broke out, the guards – an elite force answering to the supreme leader – said Iranian websites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension”

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The big domestic political news last night was Nick Clegg’s announcement that the Lib Dems would oppose the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent, arguing “the world has changed, the facts have changed, you’ve got to change with them. So like-for-like replacement for Trident is just not right.”

As Nick himself has admitted, this is a reversal of the position he adopted in the leadership contest with Chris Huhne in late 2007. The Nick argued that dumping Trident would destroy the UK’s bargaining power in non-proliferation talks in 2010. Here’s the BBC news report:

Mr Clegg hit back that

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From The Guardian:

The Liberal Democrats today become the first mainstream party to declare they will not renew Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent system with an equivalent modernised system, as parliament agreed in 2007. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, told the Guardian he was making the move because of the rapidly deteriorating public finances and because the case for such a powerful nuclear deterrent in the post-cold war world was “a complete fiction”.

Figures in the cabinet and the shadow cabinet have been privately pressing for their parties to renounce a replacement for Trident, but have not been able to persuade their

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As we discovered yesterday, Nick Clegg is the special guest on Radio 4’s You and Yours this morning and will be taking phone calls and emails from the public.

If you have thoughts on the matter and can’t get on air yourself, why not use the space below to alleviate your frustration?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced there will be a private inquiry into the Labour Government’s decision to go to war with Iraq. Beginning in July and reporting some time in 2010, the inquiry will cover the period July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by Sir John Chilcot.

Here’s Nick Clegg’s response to the Prime Minister’s statement:

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and join him in paying tribute to our brave service men and women who have served our country in Iraq over the last six years.
And in particular to the 179

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Eagle-eared listeners will have just heard BBC Radio 4’s consumer whingefest magazine Your and Yours announce that tomorrow’s Call You and Yours will be an opportunity for the Radio 4 listenership to quiz the Lib Dem leader.

A reasonably fair introduction told us that the recent election results were OK but could have been better; and the worrying statistic that whilst people generally like Nick Clegg when they know him, up to 30% haven’t even heard of the name.

The programme will be 12-1pm tomorrow, Tuesday, and available afterwards as a Listen Again / iPlayer item. There are …

2 Big Stories

Further outbreaks of violence in Tehran last night as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed victory crushes reform hopes in Iran.
Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate, is appealing against the results and has called on the international community not to recognise the official outcome. Western governments have expressed reservations about the poll but so far stopped short of outright rejection.

From the Times:

“Mehdi Karoubi, another reformist candidate, said he refused to recognise the “illegitimate” President, but Mr Ahmadinejad compared the protests to those of football supporters whose team has lost. “They are not important,” he said, adding that Iran’s form of democracy

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