Foreign affairs for Nick Clegg?

Nick Clegg meeting Dutch PM Mark Rutte - did they
speak in English or Dutch?

I've just read the link that Iain Dale put on his blog. This is about an interview he has given to So So Gay. He suggested it was read and I did. And it is a good read. Two things strike me. On civil partnerships, the current ban on a religious element to them and objections to the ban, the article says, "Dale, who is in a civil partnership himself, is open to that objection despite his own agnosticism. ‘I don’t think the law should prohibit a religious element, but I also don’t think that churches should be forced to offer services for gay people if they don’t want to.’ That's the point. Not forcing people, either way. His comments on Chris Bryant and Ben Bradshaw are also telling. But it's like all things with Labour. If they think you are stealing their political clothes they will try to say you look like a tramp.

On the Coalition and Nick Clegg's position in it after the poll slump last week for the Liberal Democrats, Dale sees Clegg in the foreign secretary role. "Dale can see Clegg as a potential future foreign secretary – subject to William Hague’s standing down at the next reshuffle". I think this would be a good idea. I've never really understood what a deputy prime minister is for or does. John Prescott spent some of his time humping his desk and carpet about his office. He also spent time knocking old buildings down in Northern England. Michael Heseltine was deputy prime minister as was Geoffrey Howe. Neither seemed fulfilled in the job.

I think, if William Hague does go in a reshuffle, that Clegg would be ideal as foreign secreatary. This is a proper job in government. He has the background from his Dutch and Russian blood and he is married to a Spanish politician's daughter. In Europe, I am told, he would come across well. Not because he is pro-European but because he would not be perceived as "arrogantly English". That's what I've been told. If the continental Europeans would be happier with that, surely that is to our advantage.

Of course, if like Peter Bone MP, you want the Coalition to collapse tomorrow, then Nick Clegg should be left to his own devices as a role-finding deputy prime minister. Mr Bone wants to "be rid of the Liberals" as if he was seeking help from a rat catcher. Personally, I want the coalition to succeed in its mission. Peter Bone may not like "liberals" but he should have helped the Conservative Party to be more electable last year. We've got what we've got. Let's do the best with it and stop infighting and move forward.

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Vince Cable "attacks ruthless Tories"

Vince Cable looking cunning and ruthless

The way the written media would have it today Vince Cable has come out as some kind of venomous spiteful loser. I heard his comments on the Today Programme and they do not merit the nuancing that is being placed on his words. Yes, he did say that the Conservatives had been "ruthless, calculating and very tribal". But it was said in a way that acknowledged their right to be so. He sounded more regretful than antagonistic. In other words, he was only re-iterating what he has probably always thought about the Tories. We should all remember that LibDems are NOT Tories. But they did not enter into coalition in order to try on Tory clothes. "That suits you very well, Vince!" "You don't think it makes me look too Tory, do you?" Perish the thought.

The BBC is oddly obsessed by the Coalition. Mostly they are trying to drive wedges into it. The press is no better. I sometimes wonder what the British electorate really wants. Probably jam for breakfast, jam for every meal of the day. But given on a plate, of course. There is this crazed idea that people got a result they did not vote for. Yesterday a woman in Birmingham had a microphone thrust in her face. When told Labour made gains but would still be in opposition to the Conservative/LibDem Coalition in the Council House, she muttered that that was not what she voted for. She even included others in her sentiments. All she did was vote Labour. She does not get to add a whole string of conditions to that vote, with a horrid ultimatum added for good measure. But listen to the media and you'd think that voters were being conned.

In any system it is not the voters who decide who governs but the elected representatives. The electorate may choose a majority for a party, but the party gets to choose who will be ministers. David Cameron was perfectly clear last year. He failed to get a majority and he did a deal with the Liberal Democrats to govern in coalition for five years. Each side had to give and take. Now it could be said that the LibDems miscalculated and got a few things wrong and that led to yesterday's poll drubbing. But to say that you didn't vote for them to be in government seems utterly bizarre and crazy. Why would anyone vote for a candidate unless he or she was hellbent on a pure protest. You vote for that person to win. If enough win they form a government. Now if the LibDems had formed a majority government, the tuition fees issue would be completely different. But they didn't. So they had to compromise.

From now on the LibDems in parliament are going into the next phase of their government role. No longer a perpetual opposition party. The LibDems will probably learn to be more calculating and a bit more tribal, and possibly ruthless. But what of the electorate? Will many still think that a vote on a ballot paper is a ticket to a cozy life without stresses, strains and problems? "I voted LibDem and got everything I ever wanted!". Do we really want that thought process in the electoral system?

Bernard Jenkin also came on the Today programme and suggested some LibDems could peel away and become like the National Liberals. Sounds good only in theory. The modern Liberal Democrat Party is nothing like the National Liberals. Vince Cable is no stranger to changing parties, but he would find it strange to change political philosophies. He started in the Liberal Party, then joined the Labour Party, then left in 1982 for the Social Democratic Party as it started up, and then agreed to merge with his original party and is now a Liberal Democrat. Hardly a Tory. But an effective minister, if he does what he says, in the Coalition.

The Coalition is there for the main purpose of forming a stable government to tackle the deficit and the general economic mess the country is in. If they fail, that voter in Birmingham will be ready with her big X at the polling booth, all bristling with rage. If they succeed, she will probably still vote Labour but won't be moaning the next day!

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Gillian Duffy collars Nick Clegg over Coalition policies

Gillian Duffy is shocked again!

"It's all gone wrong," opines Gillian Duffy, the feisty pensioner who took on Gordon Brown at the general election last year. As she encountered the Deputy Prime Minister today she gave him her ten pence worth of Labourite thinking. The fact that it was under the fading star of New Labour that the bubble burst was something she conveniently forgot. Mrs Duffy is Old Labour to the core. Money grows on trees and the rich can get stuffed!

Here she is in action -

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Nick Clegg attacked as a hypocrite

Making a difference to social mobility

I can't understand why people should get so agitated about the government's desire to improve social mobility. Maybe it's because they think only they should do it. Labour in particular think the apparatus of the state belongs to them. Their client vote is mainly the bulk of Unison. I saw Jack Dromey on Labour's front bench the other day. Now here's a guy who got a leg up in society with the help of his posh wife. Posh Harriet Harperson, niece of of an earl and a daughter of a posh doctor. When Dromey was picketing in the seventies he must have realised he needed a bit more than a bovver boy's hairdo to succeed in life.

Nick Clegg has been called names just because he had a so-called privileged background. He may have had, but his mother endured a Japanese concentration camp. Do these critics have any clue? And isn't it better helping people than sitting on the sidelines doing nothing? The Good Samaritan was able to help out because he had money and the ability to help. No good asking another helpless soul for help.

I'd say Nick Clegg was in the very best situation to help the less advantaged. Those saying that they never would have voted Liberal Democrat had they known that Clegg & Co would be in government must think voting is completely devoid from the stuff of elections. It's a bit like Little Britain with people saying "I'm the only Liberal Democrat in the village". Did they think voting Liberal Democrat meant hoping they would lose?

Those carping now would, I believe carp if any party had got in. They just carp for the sake of it. Chief amongst them is Ed Balls. He must see details of the deficit and think he's looking at a list of lottery winners from the way he talks.

Nick Clegg has gone from campaign cheerleader to Downing Street deputy. Maybe there's a whiff of jealousy in the attacks?

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George Osborne pledges Budget growth for economy

"My box of tricks"

George Osborne is about to get up and tell us whether we are going to be better off or worse off. That's the usual stuff of budgets and chancellors. However, this budget is different, I think. We can either carry on with boom and bust or we can all be grown up and realise that the economy does not work itself but we work the economy.

The Coalition is doing some good things. It is doing some odd things. I don't think it has done that many bad things so far. However, they talk about tackling corporate sleaze but appear to be doing it through clenched teeth. It's no good talking to the bosses of big business as if one is attending an amateur ventriloquists convention. "Gottle of geer!" is no way to convince the bamboozlers we are serious.

Britain needs entrepreneurial activity, it needs new ideas for new products, it needs workers working sensible hours for good pay. It short we need to create real added value to everything we do. What we have had in recent years is fake money creating fake wealth. I saw the Bank of England officials withering under the scrutiny of the Treasury Select Committee. The Bank has a nice little video about "quantitative easing" (the 21st century's best  ever euphemism!) where they admit that money is created electronically. The female voiceover makes you think it is all so wonderful. Like a holiday in the Canaries!

THEY CREATE THE MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR!!!

So if George Osborne can turn the culture of bogus bond creation around, turn the fiddlers and fakers out and bring in the real workers, the real ideas people, the entrepreneurs, the wealth creators, then we will all be better off.

Let the bamboozlers pay their taxes, let the electronic moneymakers get a real shock from their machines, and turn the so-called tax havens into tax harvests.

If we are all in this together, we should be going in the same direction, for similar goals and similar aims.

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Not so enthusiastic about the Coalition

When the Coalition government was formed after last year's general election, I decided that I would be an enthusiastic supporter. New Labour had been a total disaster in my mind. Tony Blair, master of the grease and spin method of politics, had vulgarised government. If anyone disagreed it was a "well, yeah, OK" type of putdown one got. The Coalition would be a change for the better. I was signed up so to speak.

Many conservatives, both with and without a big C, were apprehensive. So were many LibDems. The good thing is it is still sticking together in a brave attempt to stabilise the finances of the country. However, I am getting queasy thoughts. One is Nick Clegg's obsession with voting. Everything has to be voted for, rather like in the USA where it was said even the town's dogcatcher has to have a view on non-dogcatching topics. The House of Lords is being attacked by his oddly thought out democracy ideas.

But that aside, it is the economy. I doubt if there are enough private sector jobs going to mop up those being told to quit government service. Today unemployment is up and the number of those in work is down. Incomes are being squeezed. Funnily enough, if that Cayman Island banker who has just wikileaked a whole load of stuff about high profile tax dodgers is correct, then all this in-it-together mantra may need rewriting. Apparently the Swiss Banks have enough illicit cash in their accounts to balance the books and give George Osborne a bit on top to do good things with.

So my enthusiasm is waning (not evaporating!) because I want the all-in-it-together business to mean just that. So I'm now an optimistic supporter of the Coalition. That's one down from enthusiastic.

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Daily Telegraph tries to destabilise Coalition

So the Daily Telegraph thinks we all should know what LibDem ministers really think of their Conservative colleagues in the Coalition government. Did we not think they might find it hard going? Blimey, if I was in there with LibDems I might have said a few unchoice and unguarded things. However, I'd far rather LibDems than being in there with any of Prissimiliband's bunch of political losers.

It is not up to newspapers to try to bring down governments. That is up to the electorate. But what we don't need now is a phoney election with the opposition arrogantly suggesting that they would do much different. It would be a complete waste of time.

By the way, any chance of us hearing secret recordings of what Telegraph staff think of each other?

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