Sebastian Payne

Labour should learn from Nick Clegg on how to deal with its history

Nick Clegg has stepped back into the limelight today and he’s been pretty chirpy about his party’s time in government – and its prospects for recovering from its election downfall. In his speech to the Liberal Democrats annual conference in Bournemouth, the former Deputy Prime Minister was full of happy thoughts about his party’s time in government — which resulted in 49 MPs losing their seats and its vote share to just eight per cent:

‘Those achievements in Government, in turn, wouldn’t have happened without you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Each and every one of you. Whether you liked or loathed the coalition. Whether you were exhilarated or exasperated by my leadership. Thank you. Your resilience, good humour, decency and unity throughout everything we’ve gone through together has been truly humbling.’

The Lib Dems are hard to keep down and despite the lack of media interest in their gathering, the #LibDemFightback is clearly underway, at least in their psyche, if not elsewhere.

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