Lib Dem strategy for salvation: a grudging respect for anti-populism

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/07/lib-dems-anti-populist-party-nick-clegg

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Liberal Democrat strategists waiting for Nick Clegg’s final conference speech before the election privately admit a form of defeat. It no longer looks likely Clegg will ever be admired or loved by the electorate, and they concede the best they can hope for is respect.

They freely admit in private they are perplexed as to his continued unpopularity when they look at his performances as party leader either in TV interviews or on his weekly LBC phone-in, handling questions with passion, courtesy and coherence.

They claim he is the best retail politician the party has had in postwar history. Yet the polls show his personal approval ratings have been dire since the first year of the coalition, and whatever he tries – chinos, apologies, self-deprecation – the public mind is settled. ICM this week had him at a record -42 approval. He will make one last effort in his speech to address the cause of much distrust – the vote on tuition fees – but the Clegg paradox looks insoluble.

Clegg has admitted he made mistakes in that critical first year. In a bid to show coalitions can work he said he had showed an excessive chumminess, adding with the mixed metaphor that is his trademark “the party lost its distinctive voice as it knuckled down in the boiler room of government”.

In a nod to Tony Blair’s own self-assessment, he said: “You start popular but inexperienced, then as you become better at the job you become less popular.” He even cheerfully confirms his eventual political demise saying he is “not a Duracell bunny”.

But despite all of this, as they prepare to march to the sound of gunfire in the next few months, the Liberal Democrats remain stubbornly optimistic, arguing the two previous conferences have left Clegg some political space to exploit.

They argue that Ed Miliband’s speech failed to address Labour’s single biggest political weakness – the deficit – a mistake Miliband, incidentally, deeply and instantly regretted as he came off stage. Meanwhile, the Conservatives, by loading the cuts on the working poor and threatening further spending cuts, give Clegg the chance to be the defenders of public services and an in-built brake on the nasty party.

This self-description as the party of the centre frustrates some Lib Dems, such as the sacked former minister Jeremy Browne. He said he feared the party’s raison d’etre in politics was not to advance their own ideas but to retard the advancement of other people’s. Clegg will try to rebut this critique in his speech by saying the Lib Dems are a still-indispensable party of opportunity – one that poses the unpalatable questions and provides the candid answers, whether it is mental health, raising tax revenue, human rights, or the virtues of immigration. They have become the opposite of Ukip, the anti-populist party.

One party strategist admits he will be alarmed if there is no pick-up in the party’s poll rating within a month or two, and concedes it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the party could come fourth in terms of the popular vote behind Ukip.

That in turn has an impact on how hard a bargain the Lib Dems could drive in the event of a hung parliament, the subject of perpetual discussion at conference.

The prospect of trying to form a second coalition with the Conservatives if Clegg has come fourth and Cameron second in terms of the popular vote is just one of the many scenarios that leaves the party wondering at the mysteriousness of contemporary politics.