News from the New Party

Calamity Clegg vs Horrible Huhne

The Liberal Democrat leadership election campaign still fails to capture the public imagination even following last week's unpleasantness over the Huhne campaign's rapidly disowned "Calamity Clegg" document.  It seems that the opportunity to discuss new ideas and exciting new prospects for the future, which used to be regarded as an upside of leadership election campaigns, no longer inspires; not even for the Liberals, for whom idealism has traditionally been a major motivating factor in the absence of any serious prospect of power.

It's not as though there are no policy differences to talk about.  For all that the two candidates have almost identical backgrounds, they both have very different views of what the Lib Dems are for.  Chris Huhne has inherited the mantle of philosopher-king of the leftist "radical" wing of the party from Simon Hughes.  Nick Clegg is the great hope of the centrist (a.k.a "right-wing") "Orange Book" group who believe, broadly, that liberalism ought to be primarily liberal, rather than rabidly socialist.  They therefore believe in things like choice in public services, which are anathema to the likes of Chris Huhne.

So why is this debate not happening?  Clegg's understandable annoyance at the "Calamity Clegg" label masks a deeper problem.  Clegg has accused the Huhne camp of manufacturing policy differences that do not exist.  Huhne, for his part, has been alleging that Nick Clegg might favour healthcare based on social insurance (perish the thought!!!).  Regrettably, Clegg has ducked the challenge.  Either he has never believed in liberalising the public services or he is declining to discuss the issue in the context of an internal party election.  Neither possibility is particularly encouraging.  The issue of Trident is another case in point.  For the Huhne crowd the matter is straightforward: they just want to give it away, and they harangue Clegg for being a dastardly warmonger for wanting to hang on to it.  Not so, cry the Cleggites: their man wants to get rid of Trident too - he just wants to have a bit of negotiation first (negotiation with whom? about what?).

The problem for Clegg is that Huhne's allegations all carry considerable clout.  He is all too ready to disown positions he is expected to hold, and all too confused about the positions he claims to hold on to.  His infamous "Yes, er well no, hang on, or, sorry." on television recently is all too reminiscent of Charles Kennedy's apparent incomprehension of his own party's tax policy during the 2005 election campaign.  And at least Kennedy had the excuse that he was drunk.  Daniel Finkelstein comments:

Mr Clegg is decent, engaging and good company. He is clearly a very intelligent man and it is always a pleasure to discuss a political issue with him. As a result, political journalists, me included, have been convinced for some time that he would be an excellent choice and that the moment of his accession could not come soon enough. And on one thing we were undeniably right. He will make a better leader than Ming Campbell.

However, being described as a better leader than Ming Campbell is, as one of my friends put it, like being called a better violinist than Abu Hamza. It's not enough upon which to build a career as a professional musician. If Mr Clegg is going to rebuild his party, now languishing in the polls, he will have to do much, much better than that.

Take his performances on television. It is his quality as a performer on the box that is most often cited when his claims to the leadership are advanced. Perhaps we weren't watching closely enough. Since the contest has begun Mr Clegg has been hesitant when interviewed, exasperated when criticised and petulant when attacking his opponents. If Gordon Brown is the clunking fist, Nick Clegg is more the stamping foot. In the private conversations that have so impressed journalists, Mr Clegg is always cool and collected. In public it doesn't take much for him to lose it. Lose it in a polite Liberal sort of way, of course, but lose it nonetheless.

Then there's policy. Chris Huhne angered his opponent by accusing him of changing his mind on the issues. But I am less concerned with Clegg flipping than I am with him flopping. I hoped he would be an exciting new force in politics, helping to change the debate in this country by siding with the centre Right on the need for market-based reform of public services. Maybe he still will be, but he has spent most of the campaign defending his position with activists by insisting that school vouchers are off the table, as is radical NHS reform. His room for manoeuvre, should he be elected, has been reduced.

In other words, Chris Huhne, notwithstanding his lunatic policy programme, has succeeded in neutralising his opponent while sounding confident and self-assured in his own right.  Huhne won't win - not least because negative campaigning does not go down well with Lib Dems - but he has done a fair job of undermining the man who will.

This is not good news for the Lib Dems, who have little enough going for them at the moment.  They have dispatched two underachieving leaders in as many years - and yet their principal problem is not with leadership - it is with direction.  The Liberal Democrats have abandoned their traditionally pivotal position between Labour and the Conservatives and have taken up a position well to the left of Labour.  Their traditional policies on issues such as proportional representation and devolution have been largely implemented by New Labour and found wanting.  They have been obliged to seek new pastures and they have largely been foraging in the wrong places.  British politics needs a vibrant, progressive liberal alternative: the Liberal Democrats are not in a position to provide one.