Nick Clegg’s spring conference speech seems to have been written entirely with Nigel Farage in mind. The Lib Dem leader has decided to go after the Ukip chief, and today’s address was the latest example of the old party of protest directly engaging with the new one. Where Farage had a slogan about loving Britain and voting Ukip (which would have been better if it hadn’t been borrowed from the BNP), Clegg had a whole Love Actually-esque speech about it, ranging from affectionate asides about cups of tea and queues to this country’s love of freedom and its generosity.
It was pretty difficult to disagree with anything that the Deputy Prime Minister said about the lovely things about Britain. But his assessment of Britain’s future was of course markedly different to the one that Farage offers because Clegg wants to make loving Britain about voting IN rather than out of the European Union.
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