The Guardian view on Nick Clegg: liberal values and defiant unpopulism

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/guardian-view-nick-clegg-liberal-values-defiant-unpopulism

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“Well, what do you expect when you’re at 7% in the polls?” That question, delivered with a fatalistic chuckle, has been the refrain of the Liberal Democrats’ week in Glasgow. Nick Clegg had two tasks on Wednesday, first to justify his battered party’s existence, a task he acquitted well, but second also – and this is where he fell short – to offer a plan to address its dismal standing in the popularity stakes.

With so little Lib Dem support left to lose, the slide of the last several years must now, as a matter of logic, be approaching its limits. Perhaps that’s why the activists, their numbers thinned by the unruly daydreamers having walked away, are strangely serene. On the podium in Birmingham, David Cameron had felt obliged to chuck out all sorts of dubious promises on Europe, tax and human rights to woo his audience; in Manchester, Ed Miliband sorely needed to demonstrate a command that he couldn’t quite muster. But in Glasgow there was no talk of leadership crisis, and Mr Clegg took to the stage with the freedom to do as he pleased.

Earlier this year, amid bitter government spats and losing showdowns with Nigel Farage, he had looked like a man who might soon be overwhelmed. On Wednesday, though, he appeared at ease with himself, reflecting the relaxed mood of the hall back to his audience, as he explained what he was all about. Mr Miliband and George Osborne had, he quipped, unwittingly demonstrated the need for a party that could speak up for a strong economy and a fair society through their respective disregard for the two halves of this Lib Dem slogan. Not content merely to fill a void defined by his opponents, he also gave a nod to all those Lib Dem causes – Europe, human rights and constitutional reform – where the other parties are unreliable at best.

The deputy prime minister showed similar steadfastness in defending a more questionable cause: his managerialist style of politics, with its emphasis on securing a few “deliverables” through coalition, such as enhanced tax allowances which do little for the poor at great expense. He damned populism of every stripe, from Ukip to the SNP, for “claiming to address people’s anxiety about the modern world”, but failed to give any hope that there might be more serious options for rooting out the insecurity of the age. A day earlier, he had walked into a needless defeat on airport expansion, betraying more interest in making the Lib Dems an oven-ready partner for the Westminster mainstream, than in a Green party snapping at his heels.

There is a certain bravery in a stance of unpopulism, and Mr Clegg gave a good speech. But these are punishing times for liberal values. He should have offered a little less compromise to potential partners in government, and ceded a little more ground to voters repelled by the record since 2010.