By PETER OBORNE 17th April 2010 Rising star: Nick Clegg on Thursday's debate Once every so often a sparkling meteor suddenly establishes itself at the centre of the British political firmament. Five years ago it was David Cameron, with a dazzling speech at Conservative conference that won him the party leadership. Twenty years ago Tony Blair almost as rapidly burst onto the scene, courtesy of his epic performances as shadow home secretary. Now the latest rising star has emerged in the shape of Nick Clegg, outright winner of Thursday night's TV debate. His brilliance has blown apart what until now had seemed a deadly dull general election. In sharp contrast to Gordon Brown and David Cameron, who appeared to be conducting a private conversation among themselves, Clegg spoke directly to voters. He deftly caught the national mood of angry contempt and distrust for the political class. Few predicted that he might be capable of such an achievement. I had always regarded Clegg as an intelligent and a nice man, but wholly lacking in the star quality that all major politicians need. I expect Cameron made a similar misjudgment. But there is a real chance that if Clegg maintains Thursday's momentum - and, admittedly, it's a big if - he could kill off Cameron, who must be bitterly regretting making what now looks a calamitous decision to agree to the TV debates. Whatever happens in the next 20 days until election day, Cameron's strategy is in bad trouble. He had positioned himself as the agent of change. But now he has been replaced in that role by Clegg, who made him and Gordon Brown look and sound old-fashioned. Cameron had positioned himself as the voice of honesty, but Clegg made him look slightly seedy and defensive. This would be disastrous for David Cameron, whose chance of making it to 10 Downing Street is dependent on the Tories winning a score of seats back from LibDems in the South of England. On the basis of Clegg's TV performance, it cannot be ruled out that the LibDems will overturn Conservatives on May 6 rather than the other way around. So the political landscape has been dramatically transformed. A hung parliament looks very possible. In which case, the hugely respected LibDem shadow chancellor Vince Cable (who emerged clear victor of the earlier Channel Four debate between the three parties' economic spokesmen) could easily emerge as Chancellor in a coalition government. Indeed, in Cable and Clegg, the LibDems now have two of the three most popular politicians in Britain (the third being London Mayor Boris Johnson). As a result, they have the chance to secure the kind of electoral surge that could enable the LibDems to command the centre ground of British politics for a generation. If that happens, David Cameron can say goodbye to his own political future. Indeed, a Tory candidate told me that after watching the TV debate 'it occurred to me for the first time that David might never become Prime Minister and will be remembered as a John the Baptist figure rather than the Messiah'. But that is to look too far ahead. In the time left before polling day, Nick Clegg and his LibDems will rightly be subjected to the most prolonged and forensic investigation. Normally, LibDem policies evade serious scrutiny. Indeed it was noticeable on Thursday night that Brown and Cameron reserved their most vicious attacks for each other. Yet many of Clegg's policies, such as an amnesty of Britain's estimated half-million illegal immigrants, are highly controversial. His fanatical pro-European views, formed while working in the Brussels office of European Commissioner Leon Brittan, represent the opinions of only a tiny minority of the British people. However, there are other policies - such as the scrapping of Trident and support for a restoration of civil liberties - which are likely to be supported by many millions. Indeed, to his immense credit, Clegg is the only political leader to have taken British complicity with torture of terror suspects with the seriousness it deserves. Furthermore, while many may disagree with the viability of some of their economic policies, the LibDems have costed their manifesto proposals more rigorously than either Labour or the Tories. Clegg's own personality will also be tested over the next few weeks, however, and it is here that he could well struggle. The problem is that his own background and career contradict the ' Establishment rebel' image that he so brilliantly projected on television on Thursday night. Quite the contrary, he is just as much a part of the political class as both David Cameron or Gordon Brown. Most deceitfully, he has gone to great trouble to conceal this. In his carefully prepared curriculum-vitae on the LibDem website he omits the fact that he worked for GJW, a firm of lobbyists, in the early 1990s. As one of his former lobbying colleagues remarked to me yesterday: 'I am not embarrassed by my time there; but clearly he is. If Nick Clegg's asking for honesty in politics, why can't he show some himself?' So there are some very big questions ahead for Clegg. Above all, he needs to prove that he is as authentic as he appeared to be on Thursday night. Never in British political history have leaders' wives played the dominant role they now enjoy. Samantha Cameron has become a star attraction for the Tories, while Gordon Brown goes nowhere without his wife, Sarah. In sharp contrast, frontline female politicians have been frozen out. The Labour top team is an all-male affair, with deputy leader Harriet Harman ruthlessly sidelined by Peter Mandelson. Meanwhile, Welfare Secretary Yvette Cooper complains that she has been reduced to second-division status. It is the same with the Tories. There is not one woman in the Conservative election A-team, with shadow ministers such as Baroness Warsi and Caroline Spelman reduced to little better than token appearances. The LibDems aren't much better. Although women are supposed to have achieved equality, this is the most sexist general election since the 1950s, when Margaret Thatcher couldn't get selected to fight a seat because male chauvinism dictated that women were supposed to be seen and not heard. *** David Cameron expressed his outrage over the behaviour of Commons expense cheats during Thursday night's TV debate. So why in a newspaper interview did he praise to the skies the serial expenses cheat and house flipper Greg Barker, his candidate for Bexhill and Battle? This is because overseas summits remove them from the rough and tumble of domestic politics and make them look statesmanlike. So great was the temptation that Maggie Thatcher managed to attend a G7 summit in Venice on the day before the 1987 General Election. So it was very mysterious that Gordon Brown ducked out of the chance to rub shoulders last week with Barack Obama at a Washington conference on nuclear disarmament. The excuse given - that the event coincided with Labour's manifesto launch - was feeble because the date of the event could easily have been changed. Instead, I believe something more Machiavellian was involved in the decision. Bear in mind that Brown constantly takes advice off Peter Mandelson, his campaign strategist. Yet the truth is that Mandy is actually fighting two very different campaigns at once: one to re-elect a Labour government, and another to ensure that David Miliband, the Blairite Foreign Secretary, replaces Brown as Labour leader if the party loses the election. Serendipitously, it was Miliband who was chosen to travel to Washington where he gained the priceless publicity of being photographed shaking hands with President Obama. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown was left in Birmingham, dealing with day-to-day political matters in Britain. A perfect example of masterful Mandy's handiwork!Could this prove to be a seismic moment in British politics?
Saturday, 17 April 2010
It's possible that as a result of that 90 minutes of Thursday night television, the
LibDems may become a more formidable force than at any time since David Lloyd George's leadership of the Liberal Party almost 100 years ago.
If he fails, he will soon be forgotten. But if he succeeds, the reward will be huge - and Thursday night will be remembered as a seismic event which transformed modern British politics.
Whatever happened to female politicians in this election?
***
Mandy the puppetmaster
Traditionally, prime ministers have given their eye-teeth to appear on the international stage during a general election campaign.
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