Chumless Nick Clegg will be dismayed to learn that his Conservative line manager, David Cameron, attempted to get him left out of any 2015 TV election debates. I hear that Tory and Labour spinners both suggested excluding Mr Middle Man during initial discussions, Labour on the grounds that the ConDem coalition should have a single representative and the Cons because, well, they don’t like what Lenin might call a useful idiot.
Broadcasters are growing frustrated at the refusal of Westminster’s three largest parties to agree in principle to repeat 2010’s three live debates in 2015. The foot-dragger-inchief is Cameron’s mouthpiece, Craig “Crazy Olive” Oliver. The stroppy ex-BBC man believes Cleggmania cost Cameron a majority, so, I’m told, favours a single TV debate if he can’t pull the plug. Telly bods are mulling over how to break the deadlock. Watch this space.
Crazy Olive’s really a herbivore in the political jungle but strives to emulate Alastair Campbell, a true carnivore red in tooth and claw. A colleague of Olive’s called him Malcolm Tucker without the swearing. The broadcasters – BBC, ITV and Sky – complain that he undermines accountability by wrapping the Prime Minister in cotton wool, offering pooled clips as he shields his chap from interrogatory interviews. Word reaches your correspondent of an unintentionally revealing Olive riposte to those who accuse him of mollycoddling MONTAGE BY DAN MURRELL the people’s toff. “That’s unfair,” he wailed. “Cameron did Test Match Special.”
Na h-Eileanan an Iar’s MP, Angus MacNeil, should get out more in Whitehall, or at least buy an A-Z. The SNP-er was late for a meeting between the Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, and a delegation from the Outer Hebrides on a 1,000-mile round trip to discuss wind turbines. MacNeil, eight years in the job, was forced to ask a policeman the way to the Energy Department and then couldn’t find the right office. His lights were on but there was no one at home.
To the Lib Dumb jamboree in Glasgow. Nick Clegg developed a cult of the non-personality by speaking so often, even he must have been bored by the sound of his voice. The exhibition area was smaller than your average village fete. A party stall flogging badges and magnets of individual MPs struggling to look statesmanlike sold a steady flow of Sarah Teathers. The Member for Desolate Central reminds them of when the party was supposed to care about poor people instead of making people poor.
Ed Miliband will hope to avoid a rerun in Brighton of the gunfight at the TUC Corral along the coast in Bournemouth. The private meeting between him and union leaders was, by all accounts, worse than was first thought. The GMB’s Paul Kenny sustained fire for five minutes with a lecture on the values of solidarity and collective action, with Miliband’s interjections brutally swept aside. Sounds like old times.
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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