I am trying to work out whether Nick Clegg’s accession to the Liberal Democrat leadership is a good or a bad thing.
Certainly, we could do with some good news. There are three major domains in which the New Labour project has disappointed: its willingness to partake in neoconversative killing sprees; its illiberal eagerness to spy, pry and imprison; and its unhealthy relationship with big business, which manifests as tolerance of inequality to the point that the UK has become a virtual tax haven for the ultra affluent, and craven surrender to the rabid tabloids (and thus to the interests of the media barons they represent). The Labour backbenches are seething with frustration at the combination of incompetence and populist, rightwing posturing that have been the hallmarks of the Brown government.
Unless and until this anger erupts into meaningful change, realised as new leadership and a clear social democratic vision, Labour will be part of the problem, not the solution. It is unlikely that this will happen while Labour is still in power; it is pointless speculating what Labour will become after another spell in the wilderness. Another Tory administration would continue the rightward slide. By tacitly accepting the Thatcher legacy as a permanent change in the political landscape, and hiding its social democratic light under a bushel, the legacy of the Blair-Brown years has been the rebirth of a Conservative party that cloaks its state-dismantling agenda in the language of choice, decentralisation and social conscience. David Cameron’s cunning overtures to the Lib Dems and the Greens to form a “new progressive alliance” against Labour is clever politics, but that is all: scratch the surface, and the Conservatives retain a classic rightwing agenda under the guise of “empowering individuals and communities”. Thus the lack of policy specifics to back up the mood music. Despite the Tories’ recent attempts to market themselves environmentally conscious, for instance, it seems inconceivable that once in power they would have the political will to make the hard choices needed in the years to do our bit to prevent environmental catastrophe. It runs against the grain of their political nature, and against the interests they represent.
So far so dispiriting. It is no wonder that the disenfranchised Left will be watching the first moves of Nick Clegg with wary interest. It is the extent to which the Lib Dems capitalise on the space vacated by Labour in the three areas listed above – foreign affairs, civil liberties, and recognition of human equality (in economic policy terms) – that will determine whether they will be able to provide a genuine alternative worthy of our support. Despite his failings as leader, Ming Campbell can hold his head high for a principled and consistent opposition to the Iraq war when the two main parties were marching in lockstep with Washington. Of the big three, they clearly lead on the environment. And civil liberties is natural Lib Dem territory. It is on the domestic issues of public services and economic policy that the questions marks remain.
During the scrappy leadership contest, Chris Huhne attempted to portray Clegg as Cameron-lite: “Frankly there are already two Conservative parties in British politics and we don’t need a third. What Britain needs is a radical party.” Clegg rejected Huhne’s implication that he is a closet conservative, and argued that Huhne was attempting to exaggerate the differences between the candidates. So will Clegg prove to be a Tory “stunt double” or provide the radicalism that Huhne correctly identified as needed?
Time will tell. For now, though, the best work we have is a large body of commentary from Clegg himself. I will be sifting through it and trying to form a picture of the man and his policy directions.
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