Danger: Deep Water, said the sign behind Nick
Clegg as he visited a hedgehog farm yesterday. The Liberal Democrat
leader was starting his election campaign in unpromising surroundings. As he
steers his ship towards disaster he can at least show elegant irony.
The Lib Dems could once wield the power
of kingmakers in a hung parliament. Now that role has been usurped by the
Scottish Nationalists. The party is overtaken in the polls by Ukip, and in some
places by the Greens. It has never been easy to define the concept of “liberal
democracy” in Britain. Now it is unnecessary. There is competition even for the
“dustbin” vote, and from parties with targeted causes.
Clegg’s performance in the 2010 election
debatewas so dazzling that he was lauded as second in popularity
only to Churchill. I wrote unkindly that this was as good as it was going to
get. Clegg would not be king but kingmaker. And the king, once made, would hold
him trapped in craven subservience.
Cameron stuffed his government with
senior Lib Dems, thus ensuring what proved their lasting loyalty.
Few gave the coalition its full five
years. There were too many angry Tories and rebellious Lib Dems, plus the near
certainty of a resulting Lib Dem collapse at the ballot box. Yet Clegg handled
his inevitable humiliation with skill and even some panache. The party’s
previous attempt at such an alliance, by David Steel with the Callaghan
government in 1977, was a shambles.
Clegg clearly set out what he would
require of the coalition. He claims that taxes were lower, welfare higher and
austerity less severe, thanks to him. In return he held his MPs to the
coalition, as was required of him, through thick and thin, through recession
and into recovery.
His one lingering hope now is that
Cameron might scrape enough MPs to be within reach of a majority over the new
Labour/SNP bloc. Clegg thus mused yesterday that he would not rule out agreeing
to an EU referendum. He burned his fingers with reckless
election promises on tuition fees in
2010.
Such a coalition is near inconceivable.
If the Lib Dems went back into bed with the Tories they would face the sort of
elimination they saw after the 1930s, when its MPs were forced to plead with
the Tories not to stand against them.
Clegg’s other hope, that Labour might
need him to back up the SNP, is mere gasping for breath. But as the good ship
Lib Dem dips beneath the water, we can salute the captain on the bridge for a
noble last voyage. As the bard would say, he has done the state some service.
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