Nick Clegg was interviewed by Andrew Marr on the Sunday Politics show yesterday. Amongst other things he discusses how PR could be a condition of any further coalition.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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20 Comments
I thought it was a good interview. I don’t buy the idea that the messaging was dreadful. The evidence for the centre-ground working is much stronger than for it not working. The messaging could have been better, but it wasn’t dreadful.
There is not a single scapegoat for the campaign, but political history doesn’t get thrown out of the window because of one bad result for the Lib Dems.
As I have asked for many times: we need an independent review of the campaign. The review of the EU campaign was not independent and basically a waste of time. A proper review needs to be done and people need to find out rapidly why people don’t vote Lib Dem. I suggest “messaging” will be low on the list.
@Eddie I agree on the review point – that is vital. Ask the new leader on Friday 🙂 The messaging wasn’t dreadful but was pretty bad. We need(ed) to differentiate ourselves from Labour / Tories, not compare ourselves to them. The safe, centre-ground message was not inspiring nor informative.
Thanks ThomasS. I am sorry for being a bit harsh. The last review wasn’t a “waste of time”, but the next review needs to be about speaking to the electorate. The party shouldn’t ask itself why people don’t like it, but ask the public directly.
There are several questions that should be asked, but as long as it is the electorate being asked, with a bit of clarification for the reasons why they voted or if it all, rather than just who or what, then it should be informative.
He totally ignored the fact that LibDem vote had been in free fall from 2010 onwards. It wasn’t a last minute surprise, the writing has been on the wall year after year after year.
Nick Clegg: I am not eyeing up some ‘cushy Brussels job’
Shame!
I thought the “I am not eyeing up some cushy Brussels job” rather strange. What sort of job could there be? Nick Clegg could be a first rate commissioner, but he would have to be nominated by the government. The present nominee will probably have his 4 year term renewed and if not does anyone seriously believe that Cameron would nominate a Liberal Democrat?
I could have sworn the interviewer was Andrew Neil and it was a good interview. If I can find a bookie to take the bet I will have a few bob on Nick Clegg again leading resurgent Lib Dems in the next ten years!
Why would it be so wrong for Nick to have an EU job in his sights? I think it would be the best use of his talents. He’s an excellent technocrat who proved to be politically naive. He would handle any Commission brief in an authentically liberal way. Shame it wouldn’t happen. The main problem for the Lib Dems with Commissioner Clegg would be the Sheffield Hallam by-election , although maybe even that wouldn’t be so bad as he may have suffered a negative personal vote in the last election, and this might correct itself.
I think it was Andrew Neil not Marr
For one thing, there really aren’t any cushy jobs in Brussels at the level Clegg would be wanting to be. And as has been pointed out, the way the Commissioners are selected by the national governments means that, combined with Britain’s not-terribly-democratic system, he won’t be a Commissioner.
Of course, what needs to happen is for the Commission to be appointed by, and probably also from, the European Parliament. It wants to be ghe executive arm of the European system, fine, but we will be needing to get away from the intergovernmental arrangement that failed last week in Greece.
For me, the problem which lead to such a disastrous 2015 election outcome, was quite simply the fact that nobody (particularly outside of the party) had a clue as to what impact the party was having on a day to day basis when in coalition. I’ve only just become a member. I’ve done a lot of digging, research and thinking to get me here. Before I was just someone who voted Tory as opposed to Labour but got angry about some of their manifesto pledges. I had to come looking though. No presence what so ever from the Lib Dems in Sheffield South East!
Again, a transcript or summary would be useful for someone like myself who doesn’t have 20 minutes of spare time to listen to this. I have no idea what Clegg said, so I can’t comment.
Alex Macfie
Why would it be so wrong for Nick to have an EU job in his sights?
Because he has a job, which the people of Sheffield Hallam have given him, which is to represent them in Parliament. How bad would he look as if he gave the impression he considered that a job beneath his dignity and was so hankering after doing something else more prestigious?
Neil Minor
For me, the problem which lead to such a disastrous 2015 election outcome, was quite simply the fact that nobody (particularly outside of the party) had a clue as to what impact the party was having on a day to day basis when in coalition.
No, people knew, but mostly it was covered badly.
The Liberal Democrat national leadership and presentation people made the bad mistake of grossly exaggerating the impact. The result was to damage the party because it made it look like the Liberal Democrats were responsible and in full support for policies that, given the balance of the two parties, were bound to be much closer to the Conservatives’ ideals than the Liberal Democrats’.
Labour, of course, adopted the position of just jeering “nah nah nah nah nah” at the Liberal Democrats for “propping up the Tories”, as if somehow their own inability and refusal to provide a viable alternative which wads closer to the Liberal Democrat ideal had nothing to do with it. Labour said the Liberal Democrats were bad people because the 57 Liberal Democrats MPs were not able to get the 307 Conservative MPs to jump to their tune – but gave no sign that their MPs would have jumped to the LibDem tune either.
So, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrat leadership collaborated in giving the impression that the Liberal Democrats were a much more right-wing party than they made out in the 2010 general election, and that actually they were a party which was mostly Conservative in ideology apart from a few quibbles about what most people would regard fringe issues. Not surprising therefore that most people who used to vote Liberal Democrat deserted them, as a good proportion of them voted Liberal Democrat believing the party to be the best opposition to the Conservatives.
The Conservative, of course, and their state press (i.e. most newspapers, by “state” here I mean the people who really rule us i.e. big business) had a vested interest in playing down the Liberal Democrat impact. Unless it was on one of those fringe issues which could be whipped up as “loony political correctness”, in which case, whipped up it was, with the LibDems put as the bad guys standing in the way of common sense.
I think Nick’s analysis was spot on. Amazingly Andrew NEIL actually let him speak, and Nick over-rode his few attempted interruptions. . and Phyllis, far from ‘ignoring’ the turning point of our popularity in 2010, Nick actually made that point front-and-centre.
@Matthew Huntbach
The explanation constantly trotted out in LDV postings – “Not surprising that most people who used to vote Liberal Democrat deserted them, as a good proportion of them voted Liberal Democrat believing the party to be the best opposition to the Conservatives.” misses just one important point – it was the Conservatives who won on May 7, not Labour. And by the way, while last minute worries about Labour being in thrall to SNP were clearly a factor it is certainly not the total explanation. In my view the coalition government did a pretty good job, given the situation it inherited. I think the bitter vilification from Labour and others directed at the coalition in general and the part played by the Lib Dems in particular, the allegations that everyone other than the very rich were suffering miserably, were heavily overstated. Of course quite a lot of people who deserved better did suffer but in general the population regarded the measures taken as broadly necessary to address the undoubted economic problems. At the same time the Lib Dems failed to establish clearly enough the substantial contribution they made and combined this with a loss of trust, particularly over tuition fees. By the time of the election too many of our former voters regarded the Lib Dems as irrelevant and Labour as ill -led and shaky on the economy. So they stuck to Nurse for fear of something worse.
This is very different from an analysis that says we were punished for being associated with the right rather than the left.
As long as the Commissioners do not continue to sit in Parliament. One way in which the EP is more effective than the UK Parliament is the lack of a payroll vote, so MEPs are more independent than national MPs. On that note, I wonder if the UK should adopt the Dutch Parliamentary model where government ministers do not sit as MPs, but still have to answer to Parliament.
At the end of the interview Nick Clegg talked about the risks in the eastern Balkans and being ignored.
The political and ethnic divisions are best described in terms of Orthodox Christianity embedded in the culture despite most of the countries being under communism for long periods.
A swathe of countries are Russia, Belorussia, part of Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria (both EU members) Serbia, part of Bosnia, Macedonia (FYROM) Greece, part of Cyprus (both EU members).
Greece Romania and Bulgaria are NATO members.
David Cameron briefly acknowledged the issue at PMQ today, 15/7/2015, with a little bit of perceived humility! but without crediting any Liberal Democrats.
Clegg is in total, complete and utter denial about why the LD’s were annihilated at the GE. Everyone knows it was down to trust and the lack of in the LD’s after their coalition deal. To state otherwise insults the intelligence of the electorate. Clegg knows the reason deep down, but just won’t admit it. Until the new LD leadership admits this failure then they will stay where they are.
The LD’s were languishing at 8% in the polls for years so it wasn’t a last minute surge to the Tories. This had been predicted for many years on here and other forums. It was ignored and we are where we are.
The main reason we lost is that we were unable to squeeze the Labour-inclined vote.
We are now in different territory.
Labour will take a while longer than us, but are facing reality to some extent.