The Looming Liberal Democrat Paradox

You know, when you see that Neil Clark has written a piece for the Guardian arguing that, from his perspective, this government is even worse than Margaret Thatcher’s you might expect to be entertained but you don’t anticipate him making sense. But, lo, here he is:

[…] Clegg, and his fellow Orange Book Liberals, are actually more keen on market forces and globalised capitalism than the so-called Tory wets were. In last year’s election, the free market fundamentalism of the Liberal Democrats was ignored by many commentators and voters who saw their opposition to Labour’s security measures, and their advocacy of electoral reform, as evidence that the party was progressive. But progressive parties don’t enthuse over plans to privatise Britain’s motorway network, as the “moderate” Vince Cable did, nor do their leaders make speeches in which they bemoan the fact that “we have nationalised education, nationalised health, and nationalised welfare”. Under Clegg’s leadership, the Lib Dems have moved from being a genuinely social democratic party – one which fought the 2005 election on a manifesto to the left of Labour – into a British version of Germany’s pro-market FDP.