Another Clegg plan backfires

If you recall, one of Nick Clegg’s recent Big Ideas was for the Lib Dems to cold call some 250,000 households and play a pre-recorded message to their occupants.  It didn’t seem like the cleverest move at the time – who would want to be pestered by an automated party political phone call in the evening? – but it seems downright stupid now that the ICO has ruled that the practice is in breach of privacy laws, and that the Lib Dems would face prosecution if they continued it.

Sure, it’s hardly an earth-shattering ruling in itself.  But it fuels the the idea that Clegg is a calamity for his party – the Wile E. Coyote-esque leader, whose devices to stop the other parties in their tracks always end up blowing up in his own face.  With the Lib Dems dropping four points in the latest YouGov poll, these continued mishaps could well set the party faithful muttering about a change of leadership.