Nick clegg

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

Polls don’t and shouldn’t matter to Liberal Democrats, so says Paddy Ashdown. The ex-Lib Dem leader managed to whip activists into a yellow-tinged frenzy this afternoon at a packed out polling discussion. Ashdown refuted that his party has been smothered with an ‘atmosphere of political gloom’ and ordered the rank and file to ‘ignore these polls and get on with the politics’. However, an overview of Times/Populus polling on voting intentions presented at the discussion highlighted how the Lib Dems’ fortunes have changed since the election: Ashdown insisted this is nothing to worry about, citing Margaret Thatcher as an occasionally unpopular leader who was still able to win elections. With

There is something very Liberal Democrat about Nick Clegg’s Q&A session with party members at conference. There’s a distinct mix of familiarity, fondness—the loudest applause came for the announcement that today is Nick and Miriam’s 12th wedding anniversary and policy debate. In response to a questioner who claimed that Danny Alexander was more right wing than ‘Peter Osborne’, Clegg was keen to stress to members that the coalition’s fiscal plans were more flexible than they are given credit for. But his declaration that there ‘won’t be a penny less of a penny more’ of spending cuts than those already agreed indicates that the Liberal Democrats will not accept any more

One of the striking features of the opening rally at Liberal Democrat conference was how it was figures from the left of the party who attacked Labour most vigorously. Simon Hughes, the deputy leader, scolded those who think that governing with Labour would be easy; pointing out that the parties are at odds on nuclear power, Trident, civil liberties and a whole host of other issues. While the party’s president Tim Farron demanded that Labour apologise for the expensive failure of the NHS PFI projects, the Iraq war and a whole host of other issues. Nick Clegg himself was on fairly confident form. He began with a couple of gags

The free publicity which comes with party political broadcasts is more powerful than the broadcast itself: nowadays, our MPs hope their messages will go viral. Nick Clegg’s apology has: and how. The below video has his voice being digitally altered (like Cher’s in Believe) but the result is far catchier. It demands to be watched: The video-maker has done Clegg a favour. Only the most cold-hearted cynic would feel a tinge of sympathy for him  here, which may be been the idea behind the video. What Tony Blair called the ‘masochism strategy’ where you apologise and get visibly beaten up, ideally by a pensioner, until voters start to pity you.

Going into the last election, many of Nick Clegg’s closest allies and, I suspect, the Lib Dem leader himself found the tuition fees pledge embarrassing. It was precisely the kind of opportunistic policy that they had tried to wean the party off. But when it came to the election and it was still, despite their best efforts, party policy they decided to run with it. As soon as the election results came in, it was clear that Clegg’s exploitation of the subject was going to cause him problems seeing as both Tories and Labour were committed to the Browne review which was almost certain to come out for higher fees.

The news that the coalition will announce on Tuesday that it is scrapping GCSEs is welcome. GSCEs are a devalued qualification and replacing them with a far more rigorous exam should boost England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s global competiveness as well as preparing pupils better for A-Levels. (Simon Walters’ scoop has the details on how the new qualification will differ from GCSEs). That this change is going ahead is a sign that the coalition is now functioning far better than it was a few months ago. When the idea of getting rid of GSCEs was originally floated back in June, Clegg reacted with unthinking fury. But in talks that have

This country’s willingness to fritter away London’s hub airport status is an act of economic self-harm as the Conservative side of the government finally seems to have realised. But there’ll be no progress this side of the election as long as the Liberal Democrats remain wedded to their opposition to any new runways in the south east. So, the news in today’s Times that the Liberal Democrats are considering backing a new hub airport in exchange for the closure of other runways is to be welcomed. I understand that things may be even further on than the conference motion suggests. I’m informed that Nick Clegg has seen a Cabinet Office

Nick Clegg is currently eating a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream called ‘Appley Ever After’ with gay marriage campaigners celebrating the government’s consultation on introducing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Things didn’t go all that appley for the Deputy Prime Minister earlier today, though, when the Cabinet Office sent out what he later claimed was a draft of his speech that he was never going to give, which said: ‘Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat us with, as they demand we “postpone” the equalities agenda in order to deal with “the things people really care about”. As if pursuing greater equality and fixing the