Everyone has been talking for the last week about how well Clegg did in the recent leaders debate on ITV. The polls have him on anything up to a 14 point lead on Cameron and Brown, and everyone seems to be joining the 101 Facebook groups and buying the t-shirts. Yes, you too can be the proud owner of an ‘I agree with Nick’ or ‘I voted Lib Dem before it was cool’ t-shirt, though I’m tempted to buy a ‘Dave the Chameleon’ one instead.
Why is this? Well, Clegg is probably the first leader of the Lib Dems who people can look at and think ‘yes, I can see him as Prime Minister’. Paddy Ashdown was too early, when the Lib Dems had absolutely no chance of getting elected, and Charles Kennedy was a jolly nice chap but didn’t really have that statesman feel. You don’t see Nick Clegg appearing on Have I Got News for You either, which is just as well because I don’t think he’d be able to shrug off the jokes about the Lib Dems not being a serious party.
The only thing is, I don’t particularly like or dislike Nick Clegg, whereas I did (and still do) like Charles Kennedy. I’d go for a pint with Kennedy, but not with Clegg, Cameron or Brown. If you believe their characitures in the press, Brown would glass someone, Cameron would have a dry white wine poured for him by a butler (although he’s on record as being a fan of real ale) and Clegg would sit at the bar for hours trying to decide what to drink, or whether to even have a drink at all…
To be fair, I’ve seen Nick at a bar and it didn’t take him hours to decide. Perhaps his advisers told him what to order…
I’ll probably be voting for the Lib Dem’s in the general election this year, I’ve voted for them ever since I turned 18, but I’m starting to feel that even they aren’t going far enough these days.
If there’s one major benefit to being the outsider, it’s that you have no need to aim your policies at ‘Mr Average Joe’, something which can considerably water them down.
The Green Party is a great example of how politics could be done, although the changes proposed by them would be far too radical at the moment, and they obviously lack the experience required to run the country.
I’m starting to think that a Green/LibDem coalition would do a great job running the country. Am I going crazy here?
I’ve never been convinced by the Greens, I don’t think they have costed their plans properly. It’s jolly nice to say that you’ll give everyone a living wage, increase the basic state pension, pay for environmental improvements for houses etc., but where is the money going to come from? You can only raise taxes so far before people will kick you out, either at an election or before!