The fault line that Nick Clegg can’t paper over

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/08/politics-sketch-fault-nick-clegg-line-paper

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The “Winning Here” signs had been switched off: in their place were several Lib Dem bird logos trying to fly away. They weren’t the only ones. Outside the Glasgow hall, the coaches were lining up even before Nick Clegg had made his speech. Its contents had long since been leaked and picked over, so the only reason to stay was to admire the manner of its delivery. Many had already made up their minds: the hall was much emptier than it had been for Vince Cable’s speech two days earlier.

Even with so many itchy feet, protocols had to be observed. No Lib Dem leader’s speech can go ahead before the annual prize-giving has taken place and head boy Tim Farron was in a skittish mood as he handed them out. “The Albert Ingham award goes to the agent who secured the election of our MEP for south-east England,” he said. As the Lib Dems only have one MEP there was a shortlist of one for this prize. “The next award goes to the activist whose leaflets have been described as inspirational on local radio,” Farron continued with no trace of irony. You had to admire the party’s commitment to its Alan Partridge roots. The prize for achievement wasn’t awarded this year.

Clegg bounced on to the stage, but self-belief is now beyond him. He can still say all the right words; he can even bark them out when required, but his eyes now just flash the message “Why, why, why has it come to this?”. No one is listening to him any more; his party is level with the Greens on 7% and he is in danger of losing his job.

He did give it his best shot – better than many had expected – but it still wasn’t enough. The more he counsels a vision of hope, the more desperate he sounds. Even when he is attempting a joke. He talked of Al Murray delighting in the fact there was something wonderfully vague about being British. “That’s why we call ourselves Brit-ish,” Clegg said. “And it’s true. You can be British, Scottish, English …” He left out the unintentional punch line that the Lib Dems had become Lib Demish; a variation of Lib Demmery-lite that was all that remained after having so much else kicked out during opposition.

Here was the fault line that Clegg just couldn’t paper over. The more he talked of the virtues of having been in coalition, the more powerless he appeared. “In 2012, Danny and I said, ‘let’s go further and faster to cut people’s tax,’” he said. “George Osborne turned to me and said, ‘I don’t want to deliver a Liberal Democrat budget.’” So a Tory budget had been delivered instead. Every time the chips were down in coalition, the Lib Dems had lost out. Tuition fees … Clegg couldn’t even bring himself to apologise for his failure over electoral reform and Lords reform. Honesty only goes so far in 52 minutes.

From time to time, Clegg paused to rifle through his notes, as if looking for the one killer paragraph that would make everything OK, make everyone believe that this time it was going to be different. Yes, he had been naive and made mistakes in coalition. Any leader would have done so in his party’s first sniff of power. But he had learned. Oh yes, he had learned. Neither the Tories nor Labour would ever get the better of him again and all the lovely promises he was making on mental health would definitely happen.

Suddenly, he found the missing passage and his eyes lit up. “How do you know that next time I will keep my word? Because in the next government we will have half the number of MPs we do now and half the influence.” For some reason, though, he thought better of adding that bit in after all. Maybe he ran out of time. His leadership just might have done.