When he took over the Liberal Democrats, they had 63 MPs; when he quit as leader, they had eight. It took nearly a decade for his party to recover.
Nor did the Coalition help further the argument for the type of politics – leaner state, social liberalism, pro-Europeanism – that Clegg represents. Britain left the EU, taxes are at a record high, and now even a Labour Government is cracking down on immigration.
No wonder that his return to Westminster this week has attracted, at best, mixed reviews. His big message, that the Lib Dems should embrace any future opportunities to go into coalition despite the political costs, is one that many agree with, given our fractured political age. But he is the wrong messenger. “Shut up and go away would be good advice to him,” one of the party’s MPs has been heard saying around Parliament.
The speech was primarily an attempt to reset the story around the Coalition – and to make it clear that Clegg was right all along. Buried in it, however, were nuggets of insight for the current Prime Minister, and for Rachel Reeves too.
Their responses were very different: Reeves and Starmer promptly adopted a gloom-and-doom narrative, which crushed business and consumer confidence, probably contributing to the slow economic growth Britain suffered in Labour’s first six months. Clegg and David Cameron, by contrast, focused from the off on the message of a brighter future ahead: “We strived to project the confidence that we knew people and markets needed to see,” he said this week.
square HUGO GYE Labour is defiant against public anger – but we can't go on like this
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He says now: “You start at the beginning knowing that you disagree, so there’s no emotional surprise.” That “emotional surprise” is a big factor in the divisions currently rocking Labour, whose MPs seem shocked to discover that the leadership is not able to reproduce their exact preferences on every topic. Those splits now seem to be spreading to the Cabinet, with reports of Angela Rayner pushing for an alternative economic policy. A more formal way of acknowledging differences of opinion and managing them could bring the temperature down.
His response: “If that’s the case, when you’re in government, go for it. Don’t try and hold the Ming vase across the slippery floor. Just go for it, do what you think you can in the time you’ve got, because it is probably gonna be shorter than you think.”
Politics should not be a game that you win or lose; instead, great leaders use it as a machine for improving the country.
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