I think it must have been about 12:05 yesterday when I realised that there actually was no hope for me. I mean, it was Christmas Day and there I was not only listening to the Call Clegg Christmas Special, but tweeting about it as well. In my defence, the people who were re-tweeting what I was saying were probably worse.
My intention was to listen to the show while peeling the turnips and tatties (the latter being auto-corrected to tattoos on Twitter, to much hilarity) for dinner. I did get them done, eventually, but I guess my tweets were making notes for this post.
The show was recorded a couple of weeks ago in a Sheffield hospital’s Children’s Ward. Nick Ferrari actually went Up North. He didn’t wear a Christmas jumper, though. Our Nick did, and mighty garish it was too. He’d early tweeted a picture of himself wearing it.
Hoping to win the office’s most garish Christmas jumper competition. What do you think? #ChristmasJumperDaypic.twitter.com/mI3958AdEM
— Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) December 12, 2014
Nick took questions from the children in the ward on some pretty serious and hard-hitting subjects. One girl asked him what could be done to make education provision better for children with Cancer. She now had the all-clear, thankfully, but when she was having her treatment, she’s found it very difficult to get the school and health professionals to work together. Nick was pretty horrified by what she told him, saying that it was “basic common sense and decency” that people should work together to make sure sick children and young people have their education disrupted as little as possible.
He was also asked about what schools should be doing to tackle bullying. He pointed out at length the long-term harm that bullying does and said that schools need to come down hard on it. He said they need to talk openly about it. I have to say, I wish I’d heard the Deputy Prime Minister or other senior figures condemn bullying when I was going through it at school all those years ago. It might have made me realise that I didn’t deserve it, it wasn’t my fault. That fear of walking down a corridor, or a street, not knowing who was going to jump out at you and abuse or hit you is something that hangs around for a very long time. In other settings, it would be called torture.
I have no doubt he’ll take some stick for reassuring a child that anyone who said Santa wasn’t real was talking rubbish. But would you want to be the guy who ruined the magic for sick children?
It was quite a charming hour – well worth listening to.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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7 Comments
There have been at least two other examples in LDV in the last couple of days of leaders saying how much they appreciate NHS doctors and nurses etc.
Please someone put me right if my memory is failing but I do not recall one of them supporting the NHS nurses in their action to be rewarded with the 1% pay increase that the independent body recommended for them earlier this year.
1% increase in pay after years of a government imposed pay freeze in the public sector is hardly on the level of a banker’s million pound bonus, not exactly greedy.
So where were all the political leaders when the nurses needed their help?
Good wishes at Christmas are all very well but they will not pay the increased train fare for a nurse to get to work or the increased rent that a nurse has no choice but to pay.
I am with you on that, John. It wasn’t an unreasonable request. However, they will all be £800 a year better off in income tax terms than they were at the start of the Parliament which goes at least some way to making up for that.
Caron, nobody who travels by train to get to work (especially in London) is going to be £800 better off.
See —
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/dec/05/rail-fare-increase-2015
In this part of the country a lot of people are paying more than an additional £800 a year just to get to work. However much income tax they pay there is no way they are going to be better off.
They are still £800 better off than they would have been. The problem is that there have been so many other increases in the cost of living that they don’t much notice it.
Caron@
Don’t forget people, including those who don’t/can’t work or who can only work part time on low pay won’t benefit from increased tax allowances [which would likely have gone up by some % whoever was in government].
Those same low paid, unemployed or people on disability benefits have also been hit by the Coalition’s increase in VAT.
Yes, the same VAT increase that the party campaigned as being against.
“They are still £800 better off than they would have been. ”
This Government has raised their take on me over and over again, people are not, and never have been £800 better off, it was all offset with the VAT hike. After Vince’s shambolic performance over VATMOSS, its hard to see LD tax changes in a positive light; I’ve never seriously considered offshoring my businesses until the past 3 months.
That Xmas jumper looks a dangerously deep shade of blue. 😉