Clearly someone at Lib Dem HQ thought it would be a great wheeze for poor old Cleggy to show that he was human after all and encouraged the New Statesman to despatch the fragrant Jemima Khan to do a breathless, damp-gusseted interview with him. This was not wise. It exposed a fundamental flaw that politicians are wise to keep quiet about. Cleggy likes to be liked.
The trouble with the Lib Dems is that they have always outwardly appeared to be the wide eyed, adorable fluffy kittens of British politics, while on the ground they can be the dirtiest street fighters in the business with the moral compass of an Algerian rent boy on crack.
The difference between him and Cameron is that Cameron knows what it is really like to be hated. He was a bag carrier for Norman Lamont during Black Wednesday and was special advisor to Michael Howard, when there was something of the fright about him. So he is used to being as popular as a Jehovah’s Witness at a blood bank. His political life has been forged and tempered in the seemingly eternal fires of Tory vilification. So does he give a toss about the personal attacks heaped upon him by Balls and MiliEd? Of course not.
So Cleggy is going to have to pretend to grow a thick skin very quickly. Because it won’t be long, perhaps this Sunday, before carefully planted rumours will emerge about his health and worse; his state of mind. It was David Tennant in Doctor Who who said to Prime Minister Harriet Jones that he could destroy her with four words. And yes, the simple phrase “Isn’t she looking tired”, did the trick.
Most politicians have feet made of enough clay to keep Grayson Perry in business for a lifetime. And it’s no bad thing. We like our representatives to have a few rough edges; a few redeeming defects. It’s the ones who give the impression of having just entered holy orders that have to be carefully watched. For those are the ones who are secretly shagging the Royal Corgis.
So what should Cleggy do? Appear on Piers Morgan and light his farts? Not a good idea. He should just laugh in the face of the jibes. He may be dying inside, but he mustn’t show it. Because these personal attacks will seem like words of endearment compared to what will be served up in May.
But although Labour are having fun treating the Lib Dems as sort of upmarket contestants on the Jeremy Kyle show they are bordering upon seeming cruel. Cameron got pretty close to it by baiting Gordon Brown to the point that the public began to take pity on him. So if Labour strategists have any sense they’ll try and keep personal insults to a minimum. Because it won’t be long before the public will begin to feel that attacking Clegg is like strangling the Andrex puppy.
And it is in Cameron’s interest to keep Cleggy in good health, brimming with confidence, with a bellyful of fire. Because should the unthinkable Number 11 bus come along, the man a heartbeat away from the Deputy Prime Minister is Simon Hughes. Now that would give Cameron sleepless nights.
Comments
NB / April 08 2011 4:25pm
Excuse me!! 'Clearly some window licker at Lib Dem HQ '
This is a disgraceful opening line. Whoever proof read this shouldnt have let this up there.
Paul McKeown / April 10 2011 1:02am
Sadly, Jerry, you hit the nail on the head again.
That was a terrible interview by Nick Clegg; the first smell of blood and the piranhas will eat him alive. The beasts of the press are carnivores and hunt in packs, hasn't he learned anything?
Nevertheless, some of the attacks on him from Labour have become just plain stupid, or, worse still, nauseating.
Harriet Harman clipping his ear for being posh? I couldn't believe my ears. If Clegg had been in any sort of form at all, her ears would still have been ringing a week later. Especially when the issue was that the government was going to take measures to prevent the exploitation of internships by the old boys network back in the clubhouse? Surely if Labour's MPs had anything on their minds at all, apart from destructive partisanship, that is a measure that they ought wholeheartedly to have supported? I was left baffled, frustrated and rather angry.
A couple of days later, John Denham calmly pointing out on the BBC News (or something) that most universities are going to charge £9,000 in fees per annum, restored my faith that some (a few anyway) on the Labour front benches are actually trying to do their jobs as political opposition, by pointing out where the government has failed to meet its own targets or public expectations, rather than just jeering, screeching and talking bollocks.
I remember Labour from the 80's: fantastic frothing opposition, but all tactics and no real strategy. Redux. They'll win some council elections, some by-elections, proclaim the New Jerusalem, then wonder in 2015, why their polling numbers have evaporated. When asked in public, people will espouse hatred of the Tories in their droves, but speak an altogether different truth in the privacy of the Polling Booth.
As for the Lib Dems, well, I think they have achieved an enormous amount in policy terms - and greatly to the benefit of the country. But their presentation has been bloody awful. They have allowed Labour (and Guardian journalists) to paint them as turncoats, or worse, as ineffectual slaves to the evil Tories. And then all this nonsense about u-turning the u-turn on nuclear power and other such stuff. Simply spinning in circles looking for something that might earn a moment's respite from the torrent of abuse. It would make a lot more sense simply to take a fortnight's holiday. Above all, though, Nick Clegg does, as you say, need to toughen up and develop a thick skin. And the LD parliamentary party needs to start kicking back and playing rough when the opposition (from Labour - or from some of the dodgier corners of the Tory backbenches) plays rough. I like the LD's, always have, but it pains me to see them reacting so passively.
As for the AV Campaign. Hopeless - sleepwalking into oblivion. A yes vote will need momentum going into the last few weeks, an emotional tide of goodwill to carry people with them into the polling booth, surging past the finishing line. Apart from Chris Huhne forcefully calling out some of the leading distortion artists from the no camp, we have, instead, a low key campaign based on factual rebuttals of the mad contradictions ("it's not proportional" - "it will lead to permanent coalition" - durr shakes head) of the no campaign. Errghhh. A lot of people will only listen to 10% of any argument, before they glaze over. The rest is impressions and presentation. I don't know, perhaps it's time for the Yes Campaign to to reach for the mad blunderbuss of Nigel Farage; the danger is he will forget that it's a campaign in support of the AV and launch into a mad tirade about Brussels, but at least he is a showman capable of actually holding an audience's interest. No doubt too risky, and might also alienate some lefties, but as it is the campaign is dying of terminal boredom.
At least when the topic came up on QT on Thursday, Jo Swinson managed to shut Caroline Flint up, no mean feat when faced with someone so mouthy they must surely have been a barmaid on Corrie in a previous life.