In March, I did a blog entry called “Yes, I agree with Nick (mostly)”. In it, I noted that Clegg had gone up in my estimations in recent times, due to him having the guts to take a stand despite his unpopularity. I finished the article by saying “I’m not ashamed to give credit where credit is due, and he is due a lot of it”. In light of this, I’ve little doubt that in the future (be it, 10, 20 or 30 years), history will look more kindly upon Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.
I had the pleasure of meeting Nick (for the second time) in the week leading up to polling day. At an evening event in Sheffield brilliantly organised by the likes of Iain Gill and Laura Gillmore, you couldn’t tell that Nick had been up since 5am campaigning across the country. He was at ease, confident, engaging and personable. I still maintain that his oratory skills are superior to David Cameron’s, and jibes about him ageing over this Parliament are inaccurate as well as inconsiderate. You will see from my previous blog entry on Nick Clegg (and my public praise of his potential replacement Tim Farron) that I’ve not always been his biggest fan, and the European/local elections in 2014 certainly stretched my patience with him. However, Clegg had the bravery to not only enter in to a coalition with the Tories in 2010, but to see it through and allow for frequent public attacks (see his weekly radio phone in on LBC radio; did Cameron and Miliband ever have a similar arrangement?).
Clegg has always been lambasted. Not long after winning the Lib Dem leadership contest in 2007, Victoria Derbyshire grilled him in an interview over his lack of a public persona. A pop vox was taken around a seat in the country, with the interviewer showing the general public a picture of Clegg, before asking them if they knew who he was. Few did know him, although I did laugh when one person said “Is it Steve? I think I used to work with him”. This then went to the other extreme with Cleggmania in 2010; the media were out to get him as soon as he did the first TV debate, and they’ve done a hatchet job on him ever since. Let me stress that Clegg isn’t the only victim of this; Ed Miliband has had some cruel rubbish thrown at him, too. However, the media often seemed quite happy to go along with the tuition fee line, rarely (if ever) informing the public of both the benefits of the new fee system and the original culprits of tuition fees; the general public often weren’t aware of either aspect.
Tuition fees will always be the albatross around Clegg’s neck, which is quite frankly ludicrous. Many people, especially on the left, stick their fingers in their ears when you tell them these hugely relevant facts: more people are going to University than ever before, you only start paying back the fees when you earn over £21,000 and more people from disadvantaged backgrounds are attending University. Instead, they lament that Clegg “went back on his promise”. Yes, this was a bad thing, but which politician hasn’t gone back on a pledge? I’m not saying that this is right or should be tolerated cheerfully, but cast the first stone if you want to.
How about this jibe; “he sold out to the Tories and let them in”. Great, so the Lib Dems have been punished for going with the Tories…by losing most of their seats to the Tories and thereby giving them an overall majority. People will realise over the next five years just how much of an influence the Lib Dems had between 2010 and 2015, but sadly it’ll be for negative reasons, namely £12bn of welfare cuts, scrapping the Human Rights Act and an erosion of civil liberties. Clegg simply had no popular option in 2010, whichever way you look at it. If the firm rejection of the Labour Party last Thursday is anything to go by, a coalition with Labour in 2010 would not have been a stirring success either.
I feel that Clegg is in an unfortunate position now; he’ll feel duty bound to the party to not quit his seat (there’d be a strong risk of losing the subsequent by-election), yet he won’t have much appetite to soldier on as an MP for five more years. However, his resignation speech shows that he gives a damn. In theory, why should he be sad? He has a very wealthy background, a beautiful wife and kids, a multilingual pedigree which could easily land him a top job in Europe and the kudos of being the first Liberal leader in generations to enter government. Despite these caveats, Clegg does care, and it shows. Clegg’s oratory power and leadership skills certainly kept me going over the course of the coalition, and he encouraged me to think about a different kind of politics back when I was a sixth former.
The party needs to move on and rebuild. There’s no point agonising over whether we should have gone into coalition or not in 2010, because it was the right decision (mistakes were of course made during the last Parliament). It would also be very easy to distance ourselves from Clegg, as if to pretend that he was never a positive force for the party. This would be the wrong approach. We’ve had nearly 10,000 people join the party since polling day, and under a new leadership (my preference is for Tim Farron) we can bounce back, with time. However, let’s not forget the many positive contributions from Nick Clegg, and how great a leader he has been for the party. I want the party to move on and more forward, but I still agree with Nick.
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