In the Times yesterday, Nick Clegg had an article in the paper’s Think Tank strand arguing that, what he termed, ‘the usual suspects’ are preventing reform in politics and banking. Here’s an excerpt:
For two professions, 2009 has been a shameful year: politicians and bankers. Both had their worst vices and darkest secrets exposed to public view. Such is the disdain in which these two groups are now held, any rational observer would expect significant consequences: radical reform driven through by public outrage. And yet, as 2009 draws to a close, the stark truth is that both politicians and bankers are being let off the hook.
Nothing is fundamentally changing in Westminster or bankers’ boardrooms. Nothing is changing because the two old parties, Labour and the Conservatives, have chosen to duck reform. …
Our political system has become a glorified stitch-up between the two old parties: the warped electoral system that allows Gordon Brown to govern with little more than 22% of the electorate’s vote; the murky system of party funding that allows offshore donors to the Conservative party to avoid answering questions on whether they pay full British taxes; a House of Lords that has become a dumping ground for political poodles obedient to the government of the day; a Westminster culture still steeped in the 19th-century tastes of the political classes (the House of Commons has a shooting gallery, but not a crèche).
Unsurprisingly, the Labour and Conservative parties have an interest in maintaining this system. They act as vested interests do in all walks of life: trying to get away with the minimum amount of change in order to protect their interests. This is a betrayal of everyone who hoped for a silver lining from the expenses scandal — everyone who hoped it would be the beginning of a new, decent political system. …
If we don’t reform politics from top to toe, we leave in place the ingredients for a repeat of this summer’s scandal. If we don’t reform banking, we leave in place the ingredients for another financial collapse sometime in the future. If we do not act now, while momentum and anger still remain, we will live to regret it.
2009 was a year of scandal and wasted opportunities. But history is not yet done with those scandals. There is still an opportunity for real change. We must make 2010 a year for doing things differently.
You can read Nick’s article in full here.
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18 Comments
Nick Clegg has been the only political leader to state clearly what is needed to reform Westminster and to hold bankers accountable by taxing banking profits, as opposed to giving them further `loopholes’ – done at present.
Our Leader has already asked for a cleaning up of Westminster , after the `expenses scandal’ imbroglio went public.
The discerning electorate will never forget that it was only Nick Clegg, who demanded postponing the 82 day summer parliamentary recess, to put the House in order.
The call for `recall’ to be put into the constitution to enable the people to demand MP`s to answer questions in their constituencies if suspected of any breaches in their parliamentary covenant,is also long overdue.
Both Vince Cable and Nick Clegg have been demanding that it is fairer to tax a 10% levy of bankers profits before they are broken into smaller more publically answerable banks.
I don’t think Nick Clegg has really stated clearly what is needed to reform Westminster. Constitutional reforms are good for other reasons yes, but how are they really to touch the gap which ordinary people feel there is between politics and them? I have been a long-term supporter of proportional representation, but how will it really stop that common thinking “politicians – they’re only in it for themselves, dirty rotten people, have nothing to do with them”? How is Nick Clegg going to stop the situation where if I go canvassing for his party, the very people who I feel most strongly for, the very people I got involved in politics and in this party for in the first place, the very people for whom I have given so much of my time and money to this party for because I feel its advance will help them, are the people most likely to slam the door in my face saying “No thank you, we’re not interested in politics”?
I think that is an excellent piece with an excellent narrative. I would be happy if this line of attack fed in to our general election campaign.
I agree with Paul here – not only does he identify the right concerns, but Clegg is actually framing them in a narrative most people can identify with: one of elites with vested interests blocking real reform of a system that is screwing the country over. Two things: there need to be concrete policies for reform tagged to each criticism of the system; Clegg needs to get really, really angry – this is fiery prose, but a TV interview or Question Time where he knocks some apologist for the system for six and gets really passionate would be even better.
The problem here is that most ordinary people would see Clegg as part of the stitch-up. They see him as wanting a change in the electoral system which would give him more power, so make him a bigger part of the stitch-up, but it’s still a stitch-up all the same. We need to find a way to break this idea that politicians are some alien species which is imposed on us. Mere constitutional reforms of the sort proposed by Clegg, though valuable, will not do this. To pretend that they will makes things worse. Unfortunately for Clegg, the way to do this is to un-Clegg the party. We must have a radical new image of how politics could be which is not leader-oriented. Is Clegg going to do this? No. That is why he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Ah Matthew, is this when the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away?
Tabman, I am simply looking for a way in which we can move politics towards being a participatory activity rather than a consumer activity. Why do you mention “dictatorship of the proletariat” when a leading motivational aspect in my being involved in politics, is my hatred for all forms of Marxist-Leninist socialism? It is the utter failure of these stupid poseurs who call themselves “socialists” which has led to the current sorry state of politics particularly in the UK where the new aristocracy rules in triumph, aided by the high priesthood of the cult of celebrity.
Mathew, your previous comment seems to be arguing for a “leaderless” party. ISTR the Greens tried this for many years, and eventually gave up on it. Musing on the Greens led me to think of Utopianism (and disguised hard-left politics), and of course, the final stage of Communism when the dictatorship of the proletariat gives way to the sunlit uplands seemed to fit it perfectly with this.
Rush Limbaugh’s idea of a serious political debate is to call anyone to the left of John McCain a commie. If you want to call yourself green or liberal, Limbaugh and his cronies will call you the “disguised hard left” and try to demonise you out of existence. Tabman, aren’t you ashamed of yourself for using such tactics?
We don’t want a leaderless party. I don’t think Matthew was really saying that. Ask yourself though, what sort of leader does Clegg project himself to be? Even those who like what he says can see that he’s a besuited posh middle class white male, he is someone who is happy to tell the world that he thinks it’s slumming it to shop at Sainsbury’s rather that Waitrose, and he is someone who clearly wants to rise through the elite and fulfil his ambition to be Prime Minister. Now, how well does this square with the narrative that we need to put forward – of anger, reform, real change, and casting the money-changers out of the temple?
David Allen – “Ask yourself though, what sort of leader does Clegg project himself to be? Even those who like what he says can see that he’s a besuited posh middle class white male, he is someone who is happy to tell the world that he thinks it’s slumming it to shop at Sainsbury’s rather that Waitrose, and he is someone who clearly wants to rise through the elite and fulfil his ambition to be Prime Minister. Now, how well does this square with the narrative that we need to put forward – of anger, reform, real change, and casting the money-changers out of the temple?”
Nick Clegg projects what he is, not some media-spun distortion of what he is to fit a focus group. Blair and Cameron pretend to be something they’re not. Our party has had several leaders who fall into the “besuited posh middle class white male” category, Thorpe, Grimond and Ashdown to name three. That didn’t stop them putting forward a narrative of “anger, reform, real change, and casting the money-changers out of the temple”. So why object to Clegg?
Its also no secret that the Green Party contains members who have a hard-left background:, as does the Labour Party. And what they share is an authoritarian streak that has no place in Liberalism.
Ah, I do love a good family argument.
To be fair, Tabman, that article (which you’ve linked to before) is by somebody who says that she ceased to be a communist in 1989, having already fallen out quite seriously with her hardline communist family, and explains that “I’d voted Green, probably in the way that many activists of my generation, who’d felt so busy and alert in the last quarter of the 20th century, had voted Liberal Democrat, Green, Respect sometimes, always to dissent from New Labour’s combination of abject and authoritarian populism.” The fact that a prominent journalist who was in the Communist party once upon a time is now in the Greens really doesn’t justify tarring the Greens per se with the “hard-left” label, even if you don’t believe that people are capable of changing their views over time (in which case, what’s the point of politics? surely it becomes nothing but demographics, like the worst of Ulster?). I used to be in the Labour Party, but that doesn’t mean there’s no difference between the Lib Dems and Labour (pre- or post-Blair).
Ooh, did you spot my formatting mistake? Just imagine there’s a “” after “populism”.
Malcolm – formatting error forgiven, and I’m prepared to concede your point on changes on the political journey.
Leaving that aside, however, Matthew and David Allen seem to be making the point that because Nick Clegg is posh and ambitious he is a priori incapable of delivering real change. I would argue that this is (a) wrong as the history of our and indeed other parties amply demonstrates (there is far more interest in an individual who eschews a priveleged background to deliver change for those less fortunate than one who props up the status quo (Man Bites Dog vs Dog Bites man)) and (b) seems to demonstrate them falling into the same trap as that which I’ve been accused of, namely demonising Nick Clegg becsue of what he is, not on the basis of what he does.
Yep, I don’t disagree with you on that, Tabman.
In fact, Clegg is someone whom I instinctively mistrusted, and whose mood messages are often rather conservative for my liking, but, oddly enough, when I hear him speak on any sort of specifics he’s almost always making more sense than anyone else I hear. (But no doubt someone will now provide evidence of some right-wing-influenced lunacy to put me off him again.)
Malcolm – “[His} mood messages are often rather conservative for my liking, but, oddly enough, when I hear him speak on any sort of specifics he’s almost always making more sense than anyone else I hear.”
Isn’t this just called getting more conservative as you get older? 😉
Darn, them’s fightin’ words, Tabman. … Jus’ wait a moment while I get me stick, me warm gloves an’ me back-brace, and I’ll see you outside!
😆 You might have a long wait whilst I do the same!
How does taxing profits hold bankers accountable?
We need to get away from risky banking altogether. None of the three parties have a strategy to deliver this. How long can the taxpayer continue to underwrite risk? Do we offer guarantees when people go to Ladbrokes? No, that would be absurd. Why then should we offer them for banks that are speculating on whether currencies will rise or fall, or whether a particular international money market stays open?