I read Nick Clegg’s piece for todays guardian. He was attacking Ed Milliband and branded him an “old progressive” and called the coalition the “new progressives”. According to Nick Clegg the ‘old progressives’ are dogmatically in favour of bigger government while ‘new progressives’ will do whatever it takes to advance social mobility. Please read it for yourself, its probably a good indication of how the government intends to sell itself over the next five years.
Social mobility is of course a worth cause, but I do fear that this is simply spin. Nick Clegg wants to have his cake and eat it too, he wants his money for nothing and his chicks for free. He wants to be able to make university a huge burden of debt and say he’s trying to make the country a fairer place. Because he doesn’t possess the backbone to govern as the progressive he sold himself as before the elction he’s trying to change the definition of the word itself.
All that aside the best bit of the article was this little gem: “If you see every compromise as a betrayal, you will never understand plural politics and will certainly never be able to engage in it”. He’s 100% right about that but what he doesn’t understand is that theirs a big difference between compromising and selling out. I understand the ‘compromise’ Nick Clegg made, he compromised his beliefs for power (power he got from the electorate who he has betrayed) but what I don’t understand is the compromise David Cameron has made for Nick Clegg. Spin wont regain Nick Clegg’s popularity but a backbone might just do the trick.
