The Avatar for Dicklessness: A Follow Up

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