ConservativeHome’s Peter Hoskin has written a fine post on why the right should stick up for Nick Clegg, which equally functions as a demonstration of why the left should not (unless, as Lenin put it, we support him “as the rope supports a hanged man”). Hoskin notes Clegg’s early support for austerity (he pledged that the Liberal Democrats would eliminate the deficit through spending cuts alone, a stance that put him to the right of George Osborne) and his opposition to universal benefits for the elderly. Even when the Lib Dems were still officially opposed to immediate spending cuts and to higher tuition fees, it was clear that Clegg’s heart wasn’t in it (he simply accepted that his leftish party would not accept a change of policy ). Under the cover of coalition government, he has emerged as the right-leaning politician he always was.
The coverage of his comeback interview with the Guardian inevitably focused on his call for a new wealth tax, but as notable was the contempt he showed for left-wing voters. He told the paper:
Frankly, there are a group of people who don’t like any government in power and are always going to shout betrayal. We have lost them and they are not going to come back by 2015. Our job is not to look mournfully in the rear view mirror and hope that somehow we will claw them back. Some of them basically seem to regard Liberal Democrats in coalition as a mortal sin.
Clegg’s resigned tone (“they are not going to come back by 2015”) is extraordinary. Psephologically speaking, he’s almost certainly right, but since when has a politician willfully abandoned so many voters? Rather than traducing the millions who have turned against the Lib Dems (in an interview with the Guardian, of all places), shouldn’t he be trying to “claw them back”? When he declares that it’s not his “job” to do so, one is tempted to reply, “actually, it is”.
At the very least, Clegg could highlight some of the leftish policies the coalition has pursued (a 35% increase in international development spending, a ring-fenced NHS budget, an increase in capital gains tax). But when it comes to voters, the Lib Dem leader appers to value quality over quantity. Like Kurt Cobain, he would rather be hated for who he is, than loved for who he’s not.
There is something admirable about such political purity but his MPs, looking nervously at their party’s disastrous poll ratings (they are averaging around 10 per cent), will surely question his judgement.