Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has told the Financial Times that his party could consider doing a deal with Dave Cameron's Conservatives in a hung Parliament. Although the Liberal Democrats have always had an official doctrine of 'equidistance' between Labour and the Conservatives, such a deal would have been anaethema to former leader Ming Campbell and still would be to many of the party's activists.
However, Clegg, named 'Dave Cameron's stunt double', has other ideas, provided that Dave Cameron proposes genuinely liberal reforms in areas such as civil liberties, public reform and the environment. The two parties could certainly see eye to eye on identity cards. Clegg could also probably extract better terms from New Labour if he was open to a deal with the Conservatives so in that sense the move makes good tactical sense.
Clegg has also come up with an idea that epitomises why the Lib Dems are sometimes seen as the 'very silly' party. He wants to move the 'legions of very expensive bureaucrats' in the Treasury to Liverpool. The reason that they are expensive is that one wants the brightest people in the Ministry of Finance and many of them could earn much more in the City. Many of them would not move to Liverpool because of partners' jobs, plus they would prefer to live in a world city rather than a city of culture. Get real!
1 comment:
Hello Wyn
In a way a liberal conservative link makes sense as all the parties try and stand on that bit of central ground. Cameron calls himself a libertarian conservative so he should be able to get along with the liberals.
I quite like this word libertarian. Peter Hain calls himself a libertarian socialist, as does Tariq Ali.
I guess that leaves everyone that thinks ID cards and DNA data bank could be a good thing as out and out authoritarians. I'm beginning to feel sorry for Gordon Brown.
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