Just as we were all revelling in what we thought were the last few days of the politician-free summer holidays our snoozing was rudely interrupted by premature squeaking from the Clegg corner. It seems he has EasyJetted back back from Spain, presumably in an aircraft burning only eco renewable vegetation .If so somewhere in Spain they are a hundred or more acres shorter on tangleweed fields than they were before his flight took off.
His sense of timing in speaking to the Guardian was impeccably bad and his theme totally out of step with this extraordinary and very successful British summer. Timingwise, he obviously hasn't got it that the nation isn't yet ready for resumed political twittering and sanctimonious tweaking of its consciences .Next ,most of the nation is this very evening embarking on another ten days of shouting for Britain and individuals to win via a process in which sheer guts, determination and effort will succeed. Not the greatest moment to be hand wringing and promising to "hard wire" fairness into everything we do. In sport , fairness is defined only by the things just mentioned. Even they can not sometimes overcome good days and bad days, quirks of fortune and other unpredicatable variables. It isn't all fair for team GB , team anyone else or the individuals but they have to deal with it and may or may not win or lose. Fairness is never going to be hard wired into anything and anyway, the national mood isn't right now in tune with this sort of utterance. Since June there has been a lot of spontaneous and organised togetherness. Grumpy unions apart , a lot of people have pitched in , given their time for free, worked cooperatively in teams with people they never knew before and found,- no surprise,- that all the effort winning in whatever they were doing,- manning the venues, railway stations, running routes was immensely satisfying , pleasurable and had nothing to do with money. They have worked hard and made their own and each others' success. That's real fairness. Trying to tax winners, in this case the old standby "the rich", to even things out is not. It's just a window dressing charade and almost always ends up with the Exchequer taking less money than it did before.At worst some of those affected move abroad and stop spending anything in the UK. Who suffers? Everyone,-the national purse, the builders, restauranters, shops,everyone all the way through to the newsagents, maintainence people and gardners. Less money jobs for everyone.Good outcome?
Not content with prattling on in this vein, Mr Clegg ended up saying of the forthcoming Part Conference "This is the time when we (the Lib Dems) can spread out wings more" in differentiating the party from its uneasy coalition bedfellows via whose 2010 failure to secure an overall majority the Lib Dems are currently enjoying the trappings of Minsterial and other nice offices. There is no love or even vague loyalty here and future possible partners, that's to say Labour, will be observing Lib Dem behaviour closely . The sensible will be deciding that a coalition post 2015 would only be a very last resort. That makes it likely ,that faced with being the largest single party but lacking an overall majority , Labour would do what the Conservatives should have done in 2010 and run as a minority government for a few months,- mainly through the summer recess,- make sure they lose an early vote and then call a new election which they would be likely to win on a "Give us a proper chance or put up with 5 years of chaos and nothing happening" ticket.
The spreading of wings exhortation reminds eeerily of Liberal leader David Steele's laughable 1981 Party Conference exhortation to "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government". At the time they were forming an alliance with the new Labour breakaway group, the SDP . At the next General Election in 1983 the two combined won a total of 23 seats.
Right now for anyone betting on 2015, whatever else happens to the balance between the two main parties, the most likely outcome is a near wipeout for the Lib Dems. Unfair maybe Nick but that's reality whatever your hotwiring unit gets up to. There are ways to achieve a better result but trashing the coalition and rendering it impotent for the next 2-3 yeats only guarantees an outright Labour victory.
