Britannia Radio

Election in Lemmingland

WEDNESDAY, 28TH APRIL 2010

I am slightly bemused by the general media consensus that while Nick Clegg said on last Sunday’s Andrew Marr show that he would not under any circumstances work with Gordon Brown or the Labour party, he has now shifted his position to say that he might indeed work with Labour or even Brown. I watched the Marr show, and the fact was that Clegg was all over the place on this even then. He declared that he would not work with Brown because Labour would have lost the moral right to govern. However, when he was pressed by Marr on whether he would work with a Labour party led by Miliband, Johnson or some other replacement leader he conspicuously refused to answer, thus effectively confirming that he would indeed be up to a coalition with Labour under another leader. And then at the end of the interview, he appeared to suggest that he would work with anyone including Brown if they acceded to all his demands.

In other words, it was clear that Clegg will sell himself to anyone who will buy his demands.

The main demand, of course, is PR. If either party accedes to this, that’s the end of Britain as we know it. We will get permanent coalition, policy paralysis, absence of democracy and institutionalised corruption. Oh --and as Lord Tebbitobserves today, almost certainly the BNP taking part in the government of the country.

Problem is that much of the electorate is in such a strop with politics as we know it, they seem positively to want a hung parliament precisely because it would mean an end to the current political state of play. Viewing adversarial politics (aka democratic choice) as childish games that involve institutionalised spinning and dissembling, they yearn for the utopia of consensus in which ideological hatchets are buried and ministers arrive at a bland, managerial middle ground where common-sense and competence can flourish unimpeded. Not only is this deeply misguided, but the alarming thing is that there could be no going back from it.

What a mess. And the people to blame for this looming debacle are indeed Labour and the Tories. On that at least Clegg and the weary electorate are entirely correct.