The Passion of Nick Clegg

You almost feel sorry for Nick Clegg this week, with the tuition fees vote in prospect. Being hated is difficult for LibDems because they didn’t expect it. Not so with the Tories. As a conservative, you usually realise early on that you’re going to be a small fish swimming against the current of fashionable received wisdom – and that will involve various tribulations. Like having to persuade your non-political friends that you do not advocate slaughter of the firstborn, and that there is a difference between believing in empowering people, and wanting to let the devil take the hindmost. If you turn up to the Islington Conservative Carol Concert (as Eric Pickles is doing), then you brace yourself for protesters outside it (as there will be). By the time someone stands for office as a Tory, they’re usually not only hardened to this opposition – and even quite like it.