Nick Clegg: ‘Vote Labour if you like protest politics’

Nick Clegg’s speech this afternoon will include a big push for his party to accept that they are a party of government, not of protest and that coalition is a good thing. He made some choice comments to that effect in an interview with regional journalists, which the Birmingham Post has covered. Clegg said:

‘There are a group of people – they are perfectly free to do this in a free democratic society – who like to throw stones from the sidelines, who like to be associated with causes where there’s never a difficult decision needs to be made, who don’t actually like parties being in government. And who always scream ‘betrayal’ when any party goes into government. In other words, people who like protest but not the reality of power.

‘And I make no apology of saying to those people, we are not the party for you. If people want just protest politics, if they want a sort of ‘I don’t like the world let me get off” party, they’ve got one.