Communication, communication, communication: that appears to be Nick Clegg’s new
political mantra. Speaking to the Today programme earlier this morning, the Lib Dem leader said: “If there is a legitimate criticism to be made of our government, it is that we haven’t
articulated that there are things we can do”.
He made the same point repeatedly during yesterday’s impressive Q&A with activists:
‘We need to explain, over and over again, what we have managed to achieve in power: the increased the income tax threshold, the pupil premium, the triple lock guarantee for pensioners … Above all we need to say that there is nothing progressive about being bankrupt. Have we communicated that message successfully? No, clearly not.’
The coalition has been notoriously bad at selling its reforms to the wider public. For example; the environmentally friendly forest reforms were presented as a Big Society initiative, while the NHS reforms and tuition fee rises were notoriously routed in the press.
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