Wednesday 19 December 2012

Crunchy Liberalism? Sorry, it’s out of stock...

Nick Clegg’s recent keynote speech marking the fifth anniversary of his leadership has attracted remarkably little criticism within the party, considering his unsupported assertions about his own party.

The main failings of the speech were a belief in an illusory ‘centre ground’ (which always begs the question, “Between what and what, exactly?”) and the implication that his members are politically immature and starry-eyed idealists who aren’t interested in power. Clegg also seems to have bought into the infantilisation of welfare claimants. The whole thing had the patronising air of a weary parent mildly scolding his children.

Rather than go on any further, I shall defer to Jonathan Calder, who laments Clegg’s abandonment of his once-professed ‘Crunchy Liberalism’.

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