Two months after the election, the utter awfulness of the Liberal Democrats has hit me in the last few days with some degree of clarity. Of course the Tories are a bunch of shits – everyone knows that already. But the LibDems are even worse.
As the last few weeks have passed, the staggering hypocrisy of Nick Clegg and the rest of the LibDem front bench has become truly apparent. Think back to the election campaign. Clegg was the man who repeatedly described the Tories and Labour as the “old parties”. A campaign poster criticised the Tories’ 20% “VAT bombshell” and voiced opposition to early cuts. Clegg said the Tories have no mandate to make cuts and “take our jobs away” in traditionally working class areas of the UK, like south Yorkshire.
Here’s an extract from an article Clegg wrote in the Independent in March:
The Conservative Party strategy is now clear: personal animus towards its opponents; shameless scaremongering in the financial markets; double standards in its own policies. David Cameron’s spring conference speech carried one message only: vote for me, because I really really hate the other guy. George Osborne’s economically illiterate warnings of meltdown in the money markets carried one message only: vote for us otherwise we’ll get the markets to tear the house down.
These are all now positions that, in a matter of just a few weeks, the LibDems have cheerfully disowned.
The LibDems’ argument seems to be that they can better influence policy as part of a formal coaliton agreement. This is utter crap. The party could just as easily influence policy if the Tories formed a minority government alone and the LibDems negotiated concessions on a bill-by-bill basis. The problem with this approach is that Clegg doesn’t get an overblown job title and a (shared) grace-and-favour country house to doss about in. The man is transparently in it for what he can get out of it.
Spare a thought, though, for local LibDem councillors and other activists who one assumes have maintained – unlike Clegg – at least a modicum of genuine political conviction. In many UK cities, where the Tories are hated, the LibDems are looking at the electoral wilderness. This point was made by former council leader Warren Bradley last week, as well it might be. He is completely screwed.
Politics has had a tough time recently. Nobody in the real world relates to or trusts politicians and apathy is rife. Nick Clegg cannot look anyone in the eye and say that the LibDems have not worsened the situation.