Author Archives: Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s latest email missive arrived in my email inbox this weekend. Two odd things about it…

First, as Paul Walter and Jonathan Calder have already picked up: the absence of any mention of last weekend’s debate on ‘secret courts’. I understood why it wasn’t mentioned in his leader’s speech last weekend: he wanted to keep the media’s attention focused on the party’s core message. But if we go back to the original intention of the Letter from the Leader, it was – as Nick himself wrote in the first one – “to give you a bit more of an insight into what’s going on behind those Whitehall doors and how we, as Lib Dems, are dealing with the issues and challenges that come up.” Hands up all those party members who think Nick’s lived up to that pledge on secret courts?

The second odd thing is the repeated request to send us to a paywalled website to find out more about Nick’s plans for Leveson: that’s right, Lib Dem supporters are invited to hand over money to Rupert Murdoch to get the party leader’s views on how the Lib Dems intend to crack down on the abuses perpetrated by Rupert Murdoch’s company. Now, I’ve already made clear my disagreement with Nick on this issue. But I’ve no doubt he’s speaking for the majority of party members in backing a Royal Charter to implement the Leveson Report. Yet instead of directing them to a Lib Dem website, or capturing emails via a Lib Dem petition website, the Leader’s Letter invites supporters to bump their head against a paywall and make their views known through a third-party website. Neither are especially smart.

My gripes over — read on…