Interesting interview with savage cutter Nick Clegg and admirer of Margaret Thatcher. I think this leaves us with no doubt about Clegg’s choice given a hung Parliament. I wonder how many Lib Dem members are secretly wondering how they got a tory leader?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5831523/clegg-heir-to-thatcher.thtml
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Oh, sweet moley.
Nick Clegg’s inability to work with Gordon Brown and sucking up to Cameron is a symptom of Nick Clegg’s personality flaws. Beneath the ideological razzle dazzle and easy familiarity Clegg is mentally very conservative and tribalistic like Cameron. Similarly, he craves leadership and being part of the pack. This is why these dudes have a near religious experience when you mention Thatcher and draw partisan lines on issues, and why they’re so drawn to each other politically.
I’m scratching my head on the economic approach Clegg is taking. I have a massive interest in Japan and took a deep look at their economy and culture before the crisis hit. The lesson from Japan is tax cuts just get banked and depress demand while government debt soars. If I recall, the Japanese took an uncharacteristically intrusive move for them and were ringing phones off the hook to warn any Chancellor who was moving at less than 5 MPH to stimulate the economy with government investment.
Oh, dear. Clegg is comedy gold.
What I will say is that the tax policy to take 4 million people out of tax altogether is redistributative – I’d never vote for them but at least they would make poorer people better off by doing this which makes them better than the tories
Simon they have a tax policy which looks good on leaflets but which would cost £20bn that they don’t have.
I’ve heard all that tax blather before but I don’t see any plan to create real jobs or do anything about the low wage economy. It’s just more charity and from where I’m standing it just reinforces the pecking order and does nothing to change attitudes. Looking at it that way you could say the Liberals are compounding the problem.
There’s a basic issue of status. As long as people look down their noses at people with “lesser” jobs and on lower headline wages nothing will change. You’ll still have legions of people feeling like they’re stuck in a dead end job and treated as second class citizens. Sure, money is important but perception can be even more important.
This is one area where, I think, both the Americans and Japanese get it right. In America having a job isn’t such a class based thing. If you’ve got a job you’re something. In Japan CEO’s get down on their knees to clean toilets as a sign they’re not above the workforce. Some even print photos of this in their annual reports.
If I could be bothered I could dig up media articles on the homeless, unemployed who refuse to take a dead end job, call centre factories, the difference in provision between posh and poor areas, and so on, and so forth. But, nobody really listens or gives a shit so we all go around in circles muttering about change and do nothing.
To be honest, I’ve given up and quit listening. I just live here and watch bigshot businessmen, loud mouthed politicians, and do-gooders gumming up the works like a blur. As an immigrant friend of mine said, living in Britain is like living in a zoo. Go on, look at ‘em. The hard faced cow with her WAG makeup. The time served office jerk in his off-the rack sabiro. It’s a hoot.
Perception is everything.
So Clegg tells Tory rag he’s a fan of Thatcher.
With an election coming, no doubt he’ll be telling the Statesman he was a fan of Michael Foot, the Ecologist he just can’t get enough of Johnathan Porritt and the English Patriot that he’s a big fan of Adolph Hitler.
Lib Dems don’t believe in anything, they just tell audiences what they want to hear.
I noticed Lord someone-or-other, a self-styled Liberal expert on human rights law, threw a wobbly at Jack Straw over some perceived philosophical slight some months back and stormed out of talks. More like they wanted to create another “false prospectus” campaign and hoped that would get the crowd baying for blood. How wrong. How cynical.
“Lib Dems don’t believe in anything, they just tell audiences what they want to hear.”
Bristolblogger, you clearly dont have a clue what you’re talking about. Clegg’s jawdropping exercise in stroking his inner Tory is going to backfire horrendously. As a LibDem party member, I can guarantee it.
I’m afraid bristolblogger is right on with that one rockitboy, you see lid dem voters and activists are nice people, I can see why you are a proud member, however the harsh truth is the core of the lib dem movement is still increased neoliberal markets and the same right wing economic philosophy that will always see the poor exploited.
Your party opposed the minumum wage and various other employment rights bills that Labour pushed through and it opposes a democratic house of lords and frequently called for faster deregulation of the city of london before the financial crash.
New Labour may well have freed up the market to some extent as well but the bottom line is the tories and lib dems want even more de regulation and even faster. Before you give me a list of lib dem help the poor policies please consider this. your party has no chance of having to implement any of these and frequently drops any policies when there is a fret of possibly having to do it (aka free education for all)
Join the Democratic Socialist Movement, Join Labour!
ps you where right about iraq though
Telegraph reports Clegg wants to implement Thatcherite economics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7415708/Nick-Clegg-how-Margaret-Thatcher-inspires-me.html
John Rentoul with a page full of Cleggisms:
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/312375.html
I had to read that three times before I got it. There’s a few laughs and some WTF in there. More worryingly, I have a vague idea what he’s trying to say.
Is this link drug induced?
I’m not able to underwrite an upswing on your picking the helicopter view from the low hanging fruit.
More Clegg propganda:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8564335.stm
All I can say is that I had a problem not of my causing that created a great deal of personal grief and the local Liberals failed to fix it and change the system in a meaningful way.
Tinkering with cycle paths and spamming me with tales jollies to Gaza ain’t doing anything. It’s just scrubbing around the problems, wasting money, and ignoring real issues (sometimes literally) under their noses.
As they say in Texas: “big hat no cattle.”
More John Rentoul on Cameron:
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/314090.html
I note Cameron’s claims about qualified unemployed being unable to get jobs and shaking up the welfare system. What, like it’s jobs for all and we get to hug each other?
I’m still hurting from Michael Portillo’s “green form” system for signing on the dole, and the Tories itching to introduce workfare scares the crap out of me.
I am the living legacy of Thatcherism. Nobody will employ me and I’ve done everything to educate myself and spend what little money I get on what matters to have a good life.
If soundbites were pennies…
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