Screenshot from Clegg's Upcoming film "When the Dickless was a Dick"
I don't tend to follow up on
articles I've done before, mainly because the kind of issue I talk
about tends to just vanish into zeitgeist several days before I
discuss it, given my flaky writing schedule. But, given that Nick
Clegg, the Avatar of Dicklessness that he is has recorded a Youtube
video apologising for betraying the British public at large,[insert
link to Clegg apology] I suspect I may need to discuss him for
probably the last time before his resignation and suicide.
So, Nick Clegg, what can
really be said about him other than he has about as much political
credibility as Vanilla Ice? He was the imagination catching young
pragmatic leader of the Lib Dems who won people over with promises he
immediately capitulated on within weeks of forming a coalition
government with David Cameron's conservatives and since then has an
YouGov approval rating so low he's often beaten by the woodworms in
the Speaker's chair, all the while surrendering what little
compromises he aimed to get, only to be shafted for the benefits he
clamoured for. Alternative Voting went the way of the dodo and Lord's
Reform was such an abject embarrassment that talking about the
proposal is grounds for <REDACTED>.
But past his utter
incompetence, deer-in-headlights demeanour and the biggest betrayal
to students since Sky1 stole the rights to Blockbusters, I've always
struggled to really hate him. He's too pathetic and his actions to
inane to really do anything but pity the whipped compromised little
sod.
Well, you know what they say
about buses...
Last Wednesday, the LibDem
Youtube channel posted 'No easy way to say this...': Nick Clegg's
'apology' for the Night of the Long Fees. You'll notice 'apology' is
in inverted commas, since simply saying sorry does not an apology
make, and he made it a point that he wasn't sorry for lying to the
British public, or for breaking a signed pledge he was photographed
with and could probably be fairly considered a big reason he's in the
cushy chair in the Rose Garden he's in now. Instead, he's apologising
for making the promise to begin with. For hoodwinking the British
public, lying to his voter base (who will likely never vote yellow or
blue again as long as they remember) and generally dragging himself
and his party through the mud like an obedient lap dog, not even
needing a bone, but the mere potential of getting a bone to do
anything good Master Cameron asks. It was pretty embarrassing stuff,
and it didn't need to be. If he'd actually been honest, and both
admitted his wrongdoing and begun to criticise policies he was
complicit in but couldn't in clear conscience believe in, maybe some
progress could be made, the bridges torched by the napalmic fallout
of tuition fees could begin to be designed by more competent
architects and Nick Clegg might have had a chance of keeping a job
coming into 2015. Instead we get more platitudes that confirm that
Clegg not only will continue this pointless rightward trend, but
firmly believes it's the morally correct thing.
In essence he apologises for
deceiving you into voting for him.
Now, I was going to finish
and post this and have done with it, but of course, the LibDem
conference had just been, and with that came another hilariously
misguided speech by Mr Clegg, who seems to believe everything he's
doing is actually in some way effectual. Typically, a keynote speech
halfway or so into a parliamentary term usually reflects on the
hurdles crossed and the challenges left to go, all the while showing
why this party is doing the right thing. Bereft of any political
ground to actually make a speech like that, given their abject
failure to keep any of their election promises, pledges or parts of
their manifesto and become the pussy party of the rich, Clegg goes
for the one thing that he has left to put front and centre of his
election plans: Taxation. Carefully ignoring the fact that this is
once again a thing he capitulated on by allowing the highest rate of
tax to be reduced by a twentieth (doesn't sound like much but remind
me, what is a twentieth of a hundred billion pounds again?), with no
progress being made towards a means for stopping tax havens. Well,
there is the mansion tax, and that was front and centre of half the
speeches, but as a top tip for all you budding politicians out there,
if the coalition partner laughs off your cute plan to tax the rich
within hours of you announcing it, you're kind of dead in the water.
Oh, and if you have people
in your party who believe a 'classic' (aka the reason voters identify
your party) party line, don't insult them by calling them dinosaurs
and telling them the party they love is gone and won't be coming
back. Furthermore, if you must tell them that the old party line is
gone, don't quote Peter Mandleson's endlessly mocked “Stop the
world I want to get off” slice of hypocrisy while you do it.
So, after three and a half
years of avoiding both of the Clegg bandwagons (love him or loathe
him), where am I left, other than voting Green again? Well I consider
Clegg at best an idiot at this point, and at worst a mendacious
loathsome toadying cad who has prostituted himself, his party and his
reputation for a power grab that got him literally nowhere. He may
think longingly of the Rose Garden days, but I think he will very
rudely and very quickly learn that every rose has its thorn.The Avatar for
Dicklessness: A Follow Up
HuggyDave
