rascott.com

news, views, travel and an occasional blog

Up

Now In Dubai

Scott Consulting

The opinions expressed on these pages are entirely personal unless they are credited; you may not agree with all, or anything, that I write. So please use the feedback page to respond, comment or berate me.                                 

UK Election watch

Voting Liberal Democrat is the one hope for real change

5 May 2010

It may only be a small cross on a ballot paper - but the more people who put that cross beside the name of their Liberal Democrat candidate the more chance there is for real change in how British Politics works for you.

As a once committed Labour voter I, like so many, have been saddened by the abandonment of Labour values over the last thirteen years.

The Liberal Democrats now offer a genuine political alternative with values of compassion and tolerance taking centre ground.

Nick Clegg is the only leader willing to challenge Labour and Conservative commitment to renewing Trident and the use of nuclear power. He has consistently spoken out for our civil liberties and human rights. 100% of Liberal Democrat MPs opposed the war in Iraq. The Conservatives campaigned and voted for it. Without the backing of David Cameron, William Hague and other Conservatives, Labour could not have taken Britain to war. 98% of Conservative MPs backed the war, compared with 77% of Labour MPs.

I was wrong over the Iraq war. Perhaps because of the overwhelming media and political support for it. The Liberal Democrats were correct to be cautious and have been consistent in their concern at the cosy relationship with the USA.

A Liberal Democrat vote at this election represents the best chance in this lifetime to make lasting and fair change to how the UK is governed.

In little over three short weeks, Nick Clegg has gone from a face barely recognised outside the Westminster village to a phenomenon. Where once his party had to beg for attention, he now has to fend off questions not just from a British press pack at last treating the Lib Dems with respect, but from CNN and a clutch of other foreign reporters, who have made the trek to see the man who threatens to reshape British politics.

There is a sincerity about Mr. Clegg that is admirable and occasionally disarming. No one is used to simple honest responses from a campaigning political leader.

My only concern - is that in the event of a hung parliament Clegg offers his support of the Tory party based on a lose promise of some sort of electoral reform to which the Tories have absolutely no commitment. If Clegg were to side with the Tories he will lose a massive number of left of centre Liberal supporters.

A Tory win alarms me. And many others. Gary Younge wrote in today's Guardian:

"I don't have a phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid, Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few (He forgot to mention the Falklands). I hate them because they hate people I care about. As a young man Cameron looked out on the social carnage of pit closures and mass unemployment, looked at Margaret Thatcher's government and thought, these are my people."

It will be a huge pleasure if on Friday Cameron is not Prime Minister. The knives would be out for Cameron and Osborne and the recriminations in the Tory party and in the Murdoch media empire will be huge.

So please do vote. And please make your vote count for change.

*********************************************

Nick Clegg in Eastbourne today:

"Just imagine how you might feel if you wake up on Friday morning and discover instead that the Labour party and Gordon Brown are back in power having let you down. Just imagine how you are going to feel if you wake up on Friday morning and find the Conservatives and David Cameron in Number 10 just because they think they are entitled to have a turn. Making promises you know you can't trust, making promises you know they will break. Because you know that if that happens, if David Cameron or Gordon Brown get into Number 10, nothing - nothing - will really change at all."

Nick Clegg is the candidate of change

The Liberal Democrats offer a prospect of renewal which has been denied them by a grossly unfair voting system

2 May 2010 Observer Editorial

The rotten parliament is dissolved; this week a new one will be elected. Scores of incumbents who fiddled their expenses will be evicted. Many who did not are standing down anyway, too defeated by the public's loathing of politicians to face the campaign trail.

So change is inevitable. Parliament will be full of novice MPs. It might also, if current opinion polls are borne out, be hung.

The Conservatives have spent much energy campaigning against that outcome. They have publicised their irritation that voters could deprive David Cameron of a majority much better than they have explained why he deserves one in the first place.

Mr Cameron warns portentously that a coalition might lead to instability, economic jeopardy and "more of the old politics". Perversely, he also rejects the need to change the current voting system, which has, he says, the merit of delivering clear results. Except this time it might not. What then? Mr Cameron's view is that the system would work fine, if only everyone voted Conservative. This is sophistry draped in hypocrisy. He backs first past the post, while agitating against one of the outcomes that is hard-wired into it. He is campaigning against the voters instead of pitching for their support. He defines change in politics as the old system preserved – but run by the Tories.

The expenses scandal signalled the need for more radical reform. This newspaper has consistently argued that the most effective change would be to introduce a fairer voting system. The current model contains a huge bias towards Labour and the Conservatives, giving them hundreds of safe seats where MPs can complacently ignore voters. Parties then divert money and skew policy towards a handful of tactically important constituencies. Awarding seats in parliament in proportion to votes cast would extend the franchise to millions of people who feel their voices have gone unheard. Deep unfairness radiates out of our voting system and corrupts our politics. This can only be fixed with electoral reform.

If a different system yields more coalition governments, so be it. Mr Cameron ought to appreciate how like coalitions the current political parties already are. Conservative policy expresses the party's agonies in recent years as different factions have competed to graft their priorities on to the leader's mutating creed.

When Mr Cameron became leader in 2005 he recognised that the party was widely perceived as uncaring and ill-disposed towards 21st-century Britain. He embarked on a campaign of modernisation. He tried to stamp out illiberal views on homosexuality. He sought to promote candidates from minority communities. He shifted rhetoric away from attacks on immigration and the European Union, professing instead enthusiasm for the environment and international aid. That process yielded a rise in opinion poll ratings, but provoked suspicion within the party.

In some policy areas, the Conservative party has genuinely changed. The Tories are reconciled to the minimum wage, civil partnerships, the NHS. But the project is incomplete.

Modern Conservatives, Mr Cameron says, are open. But the Tories concealed for years the non-domicile tax status of Lord Ashcroft, their deputy chairman and campaign financier. Modern Conservatives are supposed to accept gay rights. But the party is allied in the European parliament with homophobic nationalists. Modern Tories should have jettisoned censorious moralism over single mothers. But Mr Cameron offers a tax break to couples on the condition that they marry, as if lone parents, blind to the virtue of wedlock, must forfeit government help.

Marriage aside, the Tory manifesto is defined by suspicion of state intervention. Mr Cameron promises a Big Society, in which charities, businesses and volunteers tackle social problems that Labour's bureaucratic agencies have failed to solve.

But the Conservatives offer no credible route map for the transition from state funding. Mr Cameron deploys the language of civic duty to salve patrician Tory consciences over what would really be a Thatcherite assault on public sector jobs and services.

Nobody disputes the need to rein in government spending. All three main parties pledge to do so. But only the Conservatives embrace austerity out of an ideological conviction that government is by nature pernicious.

That belief, central to Conservative philosophy, left David Cameron and George Osborne ill-equipped to respond when financial crisis struck. Their support for government action to stabilise the banks and stimulate the wider economy was queasy and slow.

By contrast, history will recognise Gordon Brown's intellectual acuity and political resolve when the edifice of global capitalism looked liable to fall.

Mr Brown would surely like the election to be decided on the basis of the decisions he took in those crucial days. But Labour comes into the campaign defending 13 years of incumbency, the last three of which have passed under a prime minister who has failed to inspire party and country with a coherent agenda for government. As a result, Labour's election offer has been too retrospective, a plea to preserve old achievements with little promise of greater things to come.

Even then, Mr Brown has been a weak advocate for the government's record. Labour reversed a generation of Tory under-investment in public services, building new schools, hospitals and children's centres, recruiting thousands of teachers and nurses, subsidising nursery care. Britain's social infrastructure has been upgraded. The Tory assertion that public spending rises under Labour were profligate is false. There was some waste. But mostly, Labour spent to improve the quality of life of ordinary British citizens.

Now, however, the money has run out and Labour looks spent, with few ideas and a crumpled leader.

There are as many causes for regret as there are for celebration in Labour's record. Tony Blair made peace in Northern Ireland, but he also made war in Iraq. Under Labour, violent crime has fallen substantially, but jails are full and fail to rehabilitate their inmates. In response to terrorism, crime and anti-social behaviour Labour has bought security at an intolerable cost in liberty. In place of community, we have CCTV.

Labour government has raised the incomes of the poorest, but not as quickly as it facilitated the transfer of wealth to the richest. Mr Brown was courageous in fixing the financial crisis, but cowardly beforehand in allowing the City's culture of greed and reckless borrowing to colonise the rest of the economy.

The vital context for this election is the twin crises in our economy and our politics. On both issues most credit accrues to the Liberal Democrats. Their Treasury spokesman Vince Cable was prescient in warning of an unsustainable debt bubble; Nick Clegg pushed for greater openness about expenses long before the scandal erupted.

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil liberties, alone in opposing the Iraq war.

The conventional riposte to those boasts is that the Lib Dems were free to take idealistic positions because they knew they would never be tested in government. Thus is political courage denigrated as a luxury of eternal opposition. Mr Clegg's mettle cannot be fully tested until he is in office. But he did manage, in the televised leaders' debates, to articulate sensible, liberal positions on immigration and on European integration that many Labour ministers might share but would be afraid to express. He resisted the temptations of casual populism and stated his case with passion and clarity.

Not every Lib Dem policy meets that standard. The party's aversion to nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source is misguided. Its unaffordable aspiration to abolish university tuition fees is either naive or disingenuous. But the thrust of Nick Clegg's manifesto is right on political reform, right on tax reform that would redistribute wealth from high finance to ordinary citizen, right on liberty and equality.

By advocating these things with refreshing urgency, Mr Clegg has also exposed the vacuity of David Cameron's claim to represent change. The Conservative leader has had four and a half years in which to come up with an offer that might inspire the country. Yet, on the eve of polling he is left recycling populist lines on immigration from the 2005 manifesto and spreading fear of a hung parliament. Tory poll ratings peaked nearly two years ago and have recently dipped as low as levels achieved under Michael Howard.

Mr Cameron set himself the twin tasks of irrevocably transforming his party and earning a resounding mandate from voters. Judging by the campaign so far, he has failed.

The Tories have misdiagnosed the country's problems and offer the wrong prescriptions. They think society is broken, and think wedding bells can fix it. They say the economy is wounded, and offer cuts to save it.

For all the government's failings and mistakes over 13 years, Labour's historic instinct is to protect those most vulnerable in a harsh economic climate. Many voters will want to reward that instinct even if it has been poorly expressed by the party's high command. There are constituencies where the only way to ensure a presence in parliament that might halt a Tory assault on public services is to support the local Labour candidate.

But ideally the Conservative proposition should be met with a positive and radical alternative. Nick Clegg's party offers the prospect of political renewal that David Cameron used merely as camouflage. There is a moral imperative to consider in this election, distinct from the old Labour-Tory contest. Opinion polls throughout the campaign suggest that the country wants the Lib Dems to take a place of equal standing alongside the other main parties. A grossly unfair voting system has historically deprived them of that right. It is vital this time that they win a mandate for real change expressed in the overall share of the vote, not just in the discredited distribution of seats in parliament.

There is only one party on the ballot paper that, by its record in the old parliament, its manifesto for the new one and its leader's performance in the campaign, can claim to represent an agenda for radical, positive change in politics. That party is the Liberal Democrats. There is only one way clearly to endorse that message and that is to vote Liberal Democrat.
 

If Labour is wise, it will usher Nick Clegg into Downing Street

2 May 2010 Will Hutton The Observer

Note - I simply do not see any of this happening. Mr Hutton has an idealist's dream but people who have held power never understand when it is time for them to give up that power - but it is a worthwhile read - to see just how awful Tory rule would be and how an effective and new coalition could change everything that is bad about UK politics.

"This most fateful week in politics will determine the shape of our state, the future character of British politics and how this country chooses to make the massive economic adjustments that lie ahead. The debates and campaign should have measured up to the nature of these choices. They did not. A hesitant, cynical and concerned electorate is hedging its political bets. On this weekend's opinion poll evidence, we will wake up to a hung parliament on Friday, with the Conservatives the single biggest party but short of even 300 MPS. On the other hand, a coalition of Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs, perhaps including the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, will be able to command a majority if they can find a way to agree.

Politicians can connive in the old system. Nick Clegg could permit a minority Tory government to form because it has won the most seats and the highest share of the popular vote. David Cameron may offer Clegg a few concessions to gain his consent, but he will go to the country again before the pain of his economic measures are felt and as soon as the Lib Dem surge fades. He will want to win a proper mandate for a fully fledged Conservative government and then refine the first-past-the-post voting system, reduce the number of constituencies by 10% but in so doing redraw their boundaries to be fairer to the Tories and disqualify Scottish and Welsh MPs from voting on English issues.

The state will become a Conservative fiefdom, with even local police forces directly run by Tory politicians in the name of "democratic accountability". The City of London will not be reformed. Wealth will become ever more concentrated in fewer hands. Scotland, Wales and many English regions will be devastated by swingeing public spending cuts – almost their sole economic prop for the last decade – and by ongoing de-industrialisation.

The management of an economy burdened by excessive private debt, fragile banks and a faltering economic recovery will be ideological. The prison population will grow even faster than under Labour as populist social repression intensifies.

There will be some worthwhile improvements – the scrapping of ID cards and aspects of the Big Society programme which has been too quickly dismissed by liberal critics – but in the round Britain will become a meaner, less generous and more unequal society despite David Cameron's declared intentions. This will be Murdoch's Britain, with the BBC to be cut back and Sky's influence extended. Government will be in thrall to the right of centre press. The sale of our companies to the highest foreign bidder will accelerate.

Or there is a second choice. Labour and the Lib Dems can form a time-limited coalition administration for two years with a negotiated programme of government. There will be three great aims. The first will be constitutional reform culminating in a referendum on introducing a proportional voting system and a promise to have a general election immediately afterwards. The second will be root-and-branch reform of British finance and putting in place a British innovation ecosystem to support wealth and job generation. And the third will be a deficit reduction programme that is managed not to damage recovery, an issue on which Gordon Brown is right.

Beyond those initiatives, the coalition could introduce the pupil premium to improve the conditions of disadvantaged working-class children. It will build on the advances of the NHS. It will not politicise the police service. It will suspend the introduction of ID cards. It will start building a less carbon-dependent civilisation. Above all, it will usher in a world of pluralist politics, coalition government and deliver progressive ideas from a broader strand of opinion than just whatever coterie is around the leadership of the Labour party.

A growing number of the outgoing cabinet would like this to happen. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, has made the case in public. But none of them has yet made the paradigm shift from old politics. They think that Brown could remain prime minister, for example, arguing that he commands the majority of the MPs in the coalition; any other outcome would be "unstable". There might be an equal number of cabinet seats for the Lib Dems, but Number 10 would remain in Labour control.

The proportional voting system put to the country at the referendum would be the pale version offered by Labour in its manifesto and nothing more radical. They are desperate to avoid Labour coming third in the popular vote. They claim a vote for a Lib Dem is to give the election to the Tories. They want to sustain the Tory-Labour duopoly.

In the next five days, the Labour leadership has to transform its thinking. It has to prepare itself for the most astonishing 12 hours in its history. It must start by recognising that no era of new politics can be plausibly ushered in by Gordon Brown. He will have lost the general election – losing more than 100 seats while the Tories win 70 or 80 and the Lib Dems 20 or 30. The country will not accept that having kicked him out he is miraculously back. Only a monumentally unfair voting system will have given Labour three times the Lib Dems' parliamentary representation. Brown cannot be part of the future.

Who will lead the coalition? Here, Labour must, in British terms, learn lessons in far-sightedness and generosity from people such as Mandela. On Thursday evening, a group of senior Labour politicians from all wings of the party has to tell Brown to go and offer to deliver Labour to a Lib Dem-Labour coalition led by Clegg. The deputy leader of the party, Harriet Harman, should immediately open negotiations with the Lib Dems over the programme for government while Labour hammers out who will lead it into the general election of spring 2012.

Will Clegg accept? It is the best and possibly only opportunity his party will have to change the voting system. To refuse would be to shy away from an historical opportunity. Would the country accept? The two parties together will constitute more than 55% of the popular vote and a majority in the House of Commons. It was what the electorate voted for and there is deep wisdom in democracies. To have anyone else leading the coalition would be illegitimate. Will the markets worry about weak coalition government and sell the pound? Not if the new government is clear and fast in setting out which extra taxes it will raise and what spending it will cut, even if it decides to be measured about the timing of their introduction.

The near-insuperable obstacle is the Labour party. It has been a beneficiary of the old political duopoly for a long time. A moment of this type may be beyond it. Some of the key figures will find it very hard to swallow such a bitter pill or even accept the case for more radical proportional representation. After all, Labour will have more MPs. Why is its leader not the prime minister? It will worry that Clegg will not make a reliable coalition partner etc, etc. Labour pays lip service to pluralist politics and the "progressive consensus", but when the chips are down it believes in its heart that it is the sole progressive party.

These are understandable reactions. The Labour party, for all its recent history, is Britain's agent-in-chief of change. Our health service, our universities, our schools and the best parts of our welfare system bear its stamp. It carries a willingness to challenge private monopoly power, class privilege, unearned status. It exists to fight for ordinary and disadvantaged people.

But the lesson of the last 13 years, and the prospect for the next 13, are inescapable. The party needs allies, fresh energy and to find its courage again. There are other values that count – liberty, individual conscience, respect for the community , wariness about too much state – that Labour does not hold dear in the same way as the Lib Dems.

It is this coalition of values and interests that must underpin a great, reforming, transitional, coalition government – and what I believe the country now needs and demands. On Thursday, use your vote to get it. If the Labour party even now could change the state and our politics, it would be the greatest achievement in its history."

Election is Cameron's to lose

30 April 2010

In one week the British people will elect David Cameron as the new Prime Minister.

After tonight's final debate we are back where we were when the campaign started. Is Britain ready for the return of the Conservatives from the political wilderness under David Cameron.

Overall I thought it was a disappointing, cautious debate No one was willing to be honest about how bad the economy is and the pain that is ahead.

It did feel like Nick Clegg's weakest debate. You simply cannot keep attacking political point scoring in a political debate. Not good enough. You cannot have just one economic policy - no tax to be paid on the first gbp 10,000 of income. Maybe there are other policies - this one just got mentioned as an answer to almost every question.

Beating up bankers gets dull after a while. It wins votes. But the bankers, the brightest and best of them will simply lead a brain drain out of the country.

Gordon Brown was strong on the economy (as he should be). And I liked his final line; "things are too important to be left to risky policies under these two people." It was dangerous but he really had nothing to lose.

So where are we. I don't think Clegg has done enough to be a game changer. People will vote for the system they know; the British do not and will not trust a hung parliament to be effective.

So David Cameron looks like your new Prime Minister. Get used to it. He probably wont have enough votes to have a working majority but he may be very close I just feel that the Liberal euphoria may be about to burst.

So how about:

Conservatives            310
Labour                       252
Liberal                         60
Others                         28

Total                         650

Britain's voteless immigrants

30 April 2010

"Bigot gate" made immigrants a central election issue. Why? Ignorance mainly. "Flocking eastern Europeans" was the term used by supposedly Labour supporting Gillian Duffy in her meeting with Gordon Brown. Very tolerant of her.

Who are these people? They are workers who contribute to the UK economy and to UK society. They probably pay into the tax system more than they get back out of it. they are or working age not retirement age; are less likely to draw on the NHS and are unlikely to stay long enough in Britain for a pension. And to be honest parts of the UK economy probably would collapse without immigrant labour;

And while they work very hard they dont have a vote. They can therefore be used as a cheap target for political point scoring. Gordon Brown had to apologise to Ms. Duffy. But no one has apologised to the people that she dismissed as flocking eastern europeans.

I am sure she does not think of herself as bigoted. But there was prejudice and ignorance - fuelled by the mass market tabloid journalism and television.

80% of so called British immigration is not immigration - it is integration. It is part of being in Europe and the acceptance of the free flow of labour around the European community.

Whether is is eastern europeans in the UK, the british across europe or asia, the philippinos around the world; the chinese in america or the indians and other nationalities in the UAE, immigrants make a massive contribution to the economy.

I have now lived for 22 years away from the country of my birth and as a guest in foreign lands. Yes, as an immigrant. Two of those countries have accepted me as a citizen or permanent resident. Because of what I have contributed to those countries; and what they have given to me.

Instead of the instant trepidation of immigration how about asking what is it like to be an immigrant in a foreign land? How does it feel to be so far away from home? To leave your life behind and start again from scratch? What is it like to live in a country where you have no voice? Why did they come here? What do and don't they like about the country they live in? What's it like where they come from? 

Listen. Don't judge.

"Bigot-gate"

29 April 2010

Britain is not for sale. An Australian with an American passport cannot buy the general election.

What Murdoch's Sky News did yesterday was a breach of privacy. It was underhand. And it was done in the pursuit of ratings and political influence.

Gordon Brown does not like bigots

28 April 2010

Bigot-gate. Gordon Brown calls a 66 year old Rochdale lady a bigot as he gets in the car. Only trouble is his Sky News mike was still on. Hard to believe she was a life long Labour supporter when most of her questions were from the Sun's playbook.

Well that's good. He might be worth voting for.

Time for Gordon to come out swinging and call it as it is. At Thursday's debate - "step outside posh boy" - that's what we want to hear.

But one thing I do know - I would not want to work for Gordon Brown. He screwed up - but it was clearly someone else's fault. The incident show all the personality issues that have been attributed to Brown; two faced; back-stabbing; finger pointing. If he though her comments were bigoted address them with her. Dont make small talk about her grandchildren and then get in the car and abuse her.

The Independent on the 2010 election

27 April 2010

This 'get Clegg' campaign could backfire on the press

26 April 2010 - from the Guardian on 22 April 2010

Note - the Daily Mail front page is a complete disgrace - but at least we all know that the Daily Mail readers are all tories anyway. But it was rabid, squalid, appalling journalism.

"Because the main focus of people's contempt has switched recently from Fleet Street to Westminster, newspapers may have started to forget how detested they are. But rightwing editors may quickly be reminded of it if they overdo their "get Clegg" campaign. In fact, they may have overdone it already. As it did regularly during its exposure of the MPs' expenses scandal, the Daily Telegraph used a front-page headline as big as the New York Times had on the day after 9/11 to reveal that some Liberal Democrat donors had been paying money directly into Nick Clegg's bank account, apparently so he could pay a researcher. Since Clegg says he declared these payments, it is difficult to see what the scandal is about.

The Daily Mail's front page screamed "Clegg in Nazi Slur on Britain", referring to an article he wrote for the Guardian in 2002 about Britain's continuing obsession with its glorious role in the second world war. "All nations have a cross to bear, and none more than Germany with its memories of Nazism," he had written. "But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off." This has been for decades a familiar analysis of a British problem, but the Mail calls it a "Nazi slur" (meaning what, exactly? That Britain is Nazi, or that it has been slurred by a Nazi?) and seems to be hoping that its readers believe "more insidious" means "worse".

"The Liberal leader's words couldn't be more insulting to the memory of those who lost their lives in the second world war or insensitive to their relatives," the Mail wrote in a leading article – despite the fact that there was obviously no such insult or insensitivity involved. "It's perhaps unfair to point out that Mr Clegg's father is half-Russian, his mother is Dutch, and he's married to a Spaniard," it went on. Yes, indeed; very unfair, but useful for the purpose of persuading voters that Clegg cannot possibly be a British patriot. I find it difficult not to agree with Lord Mandelson, who described these smears on Clegg as "cheap", "squalid" and "disgusting".

I write before last night's second television debate between the three main party leaders, but it seems to me that Clegg will enter it much bolstered by these ludicrously overblown attacks. In the first debate he did well with an electorate yearning for somebody fresh and new. Now his credentials as a candidate of change have been further strengthened.

These are symptoms of the belief held by some newspapers that they have the right and the power to determine who wins elections. A recent advertisement for the Independent reading "Rupert Murdoch won't decide this election, you will" so inflamed News International that its top executives, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, allegedly stormed round unannounced to the Independent's offices to give its chief executive, Simon Kelner, a piece of their minds. Who knows what will happen in the election; but even if it were not the best outcome for the country as a whole, a Lib Dem triumph would at least put these arrogant newspapers in their place."

Who is Nick Clegg?

26 April 2010

The Lib Dem leader grew up in Oxfordshire with two brothers and a sister in a large extended family. His mother is Dutch and his father is half Russian, a background to which he attributes his interest in European languages. He speaks Dutch, French, Spanish and German.

After Westminster School, Mr Clegg studied social anthropology at Cambridge.

He continued his postgraduate studies at the University of Minnesota and the College of Europe in Bruges. As a trainee journalist, he worked in New York with Christopher Hitchens.

He also worked as a consultant in London, and in Budapest writing about economic reform, having won a prize from the Financial Times.

He moved to Brussels where he worked for five years for the European Commission. He has acted as a trade negotiator with China and Russia, then as a senior member of Leon Brittan's office, who was vice-president of the EC at the time.

In 1999 he was elected Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands – the first Liberal parliamentarian in the whole region since the 1930s.

In 2004 he stood down as an MEP because he was finding it difficult to balance his career with his family life and he lectured part-time at Sheffield and Cambridge universities. He became the MP for Sheffield Hallam in 2005.

After Ming Campbell's tenure at the top of the party came to an end, Mr Clegg was elected Liberal Democrat leader in 2007 by defeating Chris Huhne in a leadership election.

He is a lover of the outdoors and claims to be an "expert" skier.

His most ill judged confession earned him the nickname of "Cleggover" – came after he said he had slept with "no more than 30" women when he was interviewed by Piers Morgan. Oops. Before he was married.

All Bets Are Off in British Campaign
26 April 2010 By JOHN F. BURNS New York Times

With 10 campaigning days left until a general election that has seen a strong and unexpected surge by the left-of-center Liberal Democrats, Britain has been thrust into a complex new political calculus about which party — or parties — will govern after May 6.

For the first time since the 1930s, the contest no longer seems like a battle for primacy between the Labour and Conservative Parties. With the latest polls showing Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats locked in a tight race, the talk has been increasingly of the possibility of a coalition government, or one in which Liberal Democrats provide the votes needed in the House of Commons to sustain a Labour or Conservative minority administration.

Adding new intrigue to the campaign, much of the speculation this weekend focused on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, not only because of the common perception among political commentators that he has led a faltering Labour campaign, but because his lack of wide support across the country is perceived as making him a major impediment to Labour’s chance of retaining power in a postelection deal with the Liberal Democrats.

After three years in office, Mr. Brown, who has not captured anything like the approval ratings of his Labour predecessor, Tony Blair, finds himself potentially the party’s dispensable man. He has said on the campaign trail that he plans to remain at Labour’s helm even if the party fails to win on election day, and has maneuvered to prepare for a postelection deal with the Liberal Democrats.

But that party’s leader, Nick Clegg, has rejected any pact that would keep Mr. Brown “squatting in 10 Downing Street” after a clear repudiation by the electorate. Mr. Clegg has said that in negotiations to form a new government, the Liberal Democrats would support the party winning the largest popular vote and the most seats. That formula appears to have been drafted in preparation for a deal with the Conservatives.

Reports in several weekend newspapers said this had prompted some senior Labour politicians to talk of dumping Mr. Brown if the party has a weak showing at the polls, and replacing him with someone Liberal Democrats might accept at the head of a coalition, possibly Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

With British elections compressed into a few weeks of hectic campaigning, much can change in the closing days, as Labour found in 1992, when a prematurely triumphal Labour saw a large poll lead evaporate, handing the Conservatives victory. Mr. Clegg has shrugged off suggestions that his party is heading for a historic upset, telling The New York Times in an interview last week that he was not Nostradamus, capable of forecasting the vote.

“I’m not daft enough to put the cart before the horse,” he said.

But recent events have led pundits to say that the Liberal Democrats’ surge in the polls is more than a flash in the pan. The party took 22 percent of the votes in the 2005 election, a high-water mark in nearly a century, since the heyday of the party’s progenitor, the Liberals, who governed for long periods in the second half of the 19th century. They remained a force until they crumbled before the combined power of the Conservatives and Labour after World War I.

Much of the country has been waiting to see if Mr. Clegg can maintain the momentum from his performance 10 days ago in the first of three televised debates with Mr. Brown and David Cameron of the Conservatives. Skeptics in the Labour and Conservative Parties had warned their leaders of the potential for the debates to be a game-changer; as they foresaw, the encounters gave Mr. Clegg — leader of the traditional “third party,” with little in the way of a notable profile before the campaign — an unmatched opportunity to impress.

When the party leaders met last week for the second debate, Mr. Clegg was again judged the most impressive performer in audience polls. Mr. Cameron was found to have performed better than in the first debate, with Mr. Brown, again, lagging. Perhaps more significant, new polls of voters taken over the weekend showed Labour trailing badly, with the Liberal Democrats vying for second place behind the Conservatives, who remained short by some distance of the level of support they need to win an outright majority.

Mr. Clegg’s performance has continued to shape the campaign’s dynamics. Mr. Cameron, the Conservative leader, has stepped up his “Vote Clegg, get Brown” warnings to voters who hope to end 13 years under Labour by voting for the Liberal Democrats. The phrase refers to anomalies in Britain’s electoral system that could allow Labour to finish third in the popular vote and still win the most seats.

Mr. Cameron has told voters they could be shut out of negotiations over a coalition government as the parties’ leaders — whom he has likened to “Tweedledum talking to Tweedledee, who is talking to Tweedledem” — decide who should be prime minister.

Labour strategists, fearful that the middle-class “floating vote” that brought the party three victories under Mr. Blair is deserting them, are facing the prospect of ending up with little more than the core vote of traditional Labour supporters. Political analysts say they make up about 25 percent of all voters. That would represent about 10 percent fewer votes than those cast for the Blair-led party in 2005.

The specter of an electoral collapse of those proportions has pushed Labour to maximize the chances of the Liberal Democrats’ supporting Labour over the Conservatives in the postelection jockeying for power.

Mr. Brown has promised a referendum on changing the winner-takes-all voting system with one that would more closely align the number of seats each party wins with its share of the vote, a priority for the Liberal Democrats since it would mean more seats for smaller parties.

In an election that could be the closest in decades, Labour’s support for a referendum on a new voting system is attracting many Liberal Democrats, since it is one Mr. Cameron and the Conservatives strongly oppose. But Mr. Clegg, from his increasingly critical remarks about Mr. Brown, appears inclined, if anything, to seek a deal with Mr. Cameron ahead of any with Mr. Brown.

Background

16 April 2010

The UK election will be held on 6 May. The British are pretty fed up with all their politicians - the expense row was a disgrace. And the perception is that politicians are not connected to the British public. Maybe this is the chance to bring them back together.

It may also be the closest election in decades. Polls are already predicting a hung parliament.

I have never voted conservative. Never will. I dislike the supercilious Mr Cameron enormously. There is not enough substance there. Gordon Brown may not be telegenic He has a face for radio. But he has a serious intellect and a serious desire to do the best for his nation. But the labour party is hugely damaged by its connections to Mr. Blair and the unnecessary war in Iraq.

And that leaves the Liberal Democrats. I was a founder member of the Social Democrats in 1981 - set up by Shirley Williams, David Owen, Roy Jenkins, and Bill Rodgers. It was 1988 when they merged with the Liberal Party. At the end of 2007 Nick Clegg became the Liberal Democrat leader and their is a momentum behind the Lib Dems that suggests they may hold the balance of power in the next parliament.

And for the first time in the UK - there will be live leader debates on TV. Three 90 minute debates. The three main leaders – Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg – will take each other on face to face in three 90-minute sessions live on television. Tonight they are in the north-west to tackle domestic issues with ITV newsreader Alastair Stewart; next week they go to the south-west for a battle on global affairs to be moderated by Sky's political editor Adam Boulton. Finally it will be the turn of the BBC – and the economy, chaired by David Dimbleby, from the Midlands. Under the 70+ rules studio audiences will be allowed to ask questions but not to applaud.
 
The debate organisers will be under heavy scrutiny from all three party headquarters. When Vince Cable, the Lib Dems' shadow chancellor, appeared to be coming out on top in the recent chancellors' debate, the Tories called a Channel 4 hotline three times during the broadcast to complain that he was receiving favourable treatment.

Most seats in England and Wales (but none in Scotland) will be fought on new election boundaries, and most of the changes are expected to work in favour of the Conservatives. Traditional Labour strongholds have been allocated fewer seats, reflecting population movements out of cities and into the suburbs, while the leafier suburban areas, which tend to be more Tory, receive more seats.

According to analysis from the University of Plymouth, the changes will mean the Tories gain 12 seats, while Labour lose seven. The new House of Commons will have 650 seats, four more than now, so a party requires 326 MPs for an overall majority. These changes will see the creation of 13 new seats and the abolition of nine

Huge numbers of people are undecided in 2010. A record turnout for smaller parties such as Ukip, the Greens and the BNP is likely. The number of floaters this time round – along with general disillusionment with politics – makes this election the hardest to call in a generation. And in part makes the TV debates especially important. They are basically job interviews!

Could it be a hung parliament. This happens when no single party has an overall majority in the Commons. In such circumstances the government will not be able to guarantee its ability to win votes and push through a legislative programme without the support of other parties. To gain an absolute majority, a party will need 326 seats. Labour will lose its absolute majority if it loses 24 seats and the Conservatives will gain an absolute majority if they gain 116. Any result in between will result in parliament being hung – and the polls suggest we may be in a position where no party will get an overall majority.

What happens then? Brown can try to hang on in power for a period even if his party does not win the largest number of seats. In 1974, Edward Heath stayed on for four days after the election trying to put together a coalition, even though Labour had the most seats in Parliament.

A party can stay in government without an absolute majority and try to forge a coalition, involving policy concessions and the award of senior jobs to other parties. Or it can form a minority government and hope for the best in parliamentary votes.

When did we last go down this road? In the first of two elections in 1974, no party won an outright majority. Labour won 301 seats and the Conservatives 297. Harold Wilson formed a minority government, but it did not last long. A second election in October gave Wilson a majority of three.

How liberal are the Lib Dems? Well Lib Dem candidate for Gravesham, Kent, Anna Arrowsmith is a director of porn movies. Last year she won a battle with censors to be allowed to show a scene of female ejaculation. "There will be some people who will never like porn," she said recently. "People approach sex in different ways. For some it is only an emotional act. For others it is a variety of acts. Some people will never accept that. They are probably the same people who never had a one-night stand. There will be some people who are conservative and very anti-porn. I think on the whole these days people are far more liberal."

She must be worth a vote !

Updates 16 April: Liberal Democrat poll surge could wipe out Labour

Can Liberal Democrats take their opportunity?

Guardian Leader 15 April 2010

"Right now, the Liberal Democrats are in the midst of what may be the most important 48 hours of their entire election campaign. The launch of the party's 2010 manifesto yesterday gave them the rare experience of being the main political story for the broadcasters (who are required to observe balance during the campaign) and for enough of the rest of the media to make a difference. Tonight, in the first of the three leaders' election debates, Nick Clegg also gets the chance he never gets in the unfair House of Commons – of being treated as a potential prime minister along with his two rivals. If he and his party seize these opportunities and make the most of them, gaining a poll boost that in turn persuades voters that a Lib Dem vote is not a wasted vote, this could be a pivotal phase of the election contest.

This is an exciting possibility. The manifesto launch suggests that the Lib Dems are well aware of the stakes. For their moment in the spotlight, they chose a focused, costed and serious political message. Unlike the design-led offerings of their opponents, the Lib Dem manifesto is content-led. With the party's four key priorities on tax, schools, jobs and political reform listed on its front, this is one book that you can judge by its cover. The launch was mercifully accompanied by little of the razzmatazz (the Lib Dems don't have the money for it anyway) that marked the Labour and Tory launches – and with Mr Clegg's wife Miriam González Durántez commendably not acting as a media shield for her husband. Most important of all, they launched in the heart of the City of London, with Vince Cable centre stage to stress that the party will not be deflected from putting the City, the financial crisis and the structural deficit at the centre of their own case and their critique of their opponents.

Mr Cable's high standing gives the Lib Dems two precious advantages which they rightly exploited yesterday. One is to lay first claim to the votes of the thousands of people who want to use the 2010 election to punish the bankers. The other is to be the party that tells the hard truth about the economy and the deficit, allowing Mr Cable to make a strong pitch to voters who want an honest message about future spending rather than an evasive one. Gordon Brown's new admission that he presided over a failed bank regulatory regime is an attempt to reclaim some moral high ground here, but the Lib Dems' record nevertheless remains a better one on both banks and fiscal frankness.

Mr Clegg's main role at the launch was to stress that fairness stands at the heart of Lib Dem priorities. He was careful, though, not to overegg his case. Perhaps Mr Clegg is lucky with the temper of the times. He seems more at ease offering a sometimes uncomfortable anti-state message than the more social democratic ambitions on education and social policy that marked Charles Kennedy's tenure in more prosperous times. The Lib Dem version of fairness needs to be carefully scrutinised. While they are, commendably, far bolder than either of the bigger parties in arguing for the seriously rich to bear more of the tax burden, they seem more concerned about middle-class votes than those at the bottom of the heap. Despite the tough talk on the deficit, they are proposing to cut the fairest of taxes by nearly £17bn. The effect of this across-the-board income tax cut would, for example, be to put £1,400 into the pockets of a well-to-do couple who have no children and who do not bother saving for retirement.

The Lib Dems have an attractive electoral offer. Yet, apart from a striking line accusing Labour and the Tories of being "stupid on crime" not tough, Mr Clegg did little yesterday to stress some of the best reasons that have drawn many voters to the Lib Dems in the past, such as civil liberties, Europe, Iraq and the environment. Those subjects must not be neglected in the tactical cut and thrust that is bound to mark the long awaited debates."

Nick Clegg on why the Lib Dems are different

11 April 2010 - The Guardian

"Nick Clegg has not had it all his own way in week one. Most people in Britain still don't know who he is, or what he represents. And something about his confident, boyish look can occasionally invite teasing. During a tour of Wales he was even asked what flavour he would be if he was a crisp. Ready salted? Cheese and onion? Bovril? It was impossible to say.

Then he was stitched up by a gaggle of elderly women in a residential home. They told him they were knitting to raise money for Aids victims in Africa. After he left, they giggled and admitted "really we're just here for a bitch and a stitch". Sometimes, it seems, the Liberal Democrat leader is easy pickings.

Some have claimed he is too quiet, too bland, too invisible. Others that he gets too steamed up. "My head spins," he tells the Observer during the most hectic week of his political career so far. "One moment I'm told I'm too edgy, then people say I'm too angry, then that I show too much passion ... make your minds up," he says.

"I am who I am," he says, gesticulating. "I'm very comfortable in my own skin. I'm not going to change or try to alter my personality. It's a bit too late for that now." It is a rare moment of calm in his House of Commons office. Asked if he sometimes feels in the shadow of the hugely popular "Saint Vince Cable", the party's economic spokesman, Clegg leans back, smiling knowingly. "There's somehow a hidden assumption that I wouldn't celebrate that Vince is now the most trusted politician [in the country]. It's like asking a cricket captain, do you mind that you have the best batsman on your team? No!" he exclaims. Cable is "absolutely brilliant", a "close friend". "We have complementary strengths and weaknesses."

Clegg is visibly excited by the prospect of his first campaign in charge of a party that could in a month's time be holding the balance of power in a hung parliament. He may be little known, but he is confident – both personally, and in the belief that his party has messages the country will understand. "I am immensely optimistic," he says. The Liberal Democrats are targeting 100 seats, the most ever in the party's history. And Clegg says their own polling in key marginals shows that "on a really good day, we could do dramatic things". He points to the fact that the party is doing as well in the polls as in 2005, but this time without the boost of the anti-Iraq-war vote.

If there is one thing the country can be pretty sure of, it is that it will not wake up on 7 May to prime minister Clegg. But say he was in the top job – what would he do first? What is the number one, driving ambition?

"I am usually woken up at 5.30am by the one-year-old – so may one-year-olds sleep a little longer?" he says, laughing, buying some time as he considers his answer. Then he's off on everything liberal. "A liberal basically believes that what you should be doing, every waking minute if you are in politics, is trying to release potential, create opportunity, remove barriers to social progress, liberate social mobility," says Clegg. "That is why our tax proposals will be the centrepiece of our manifesto. They exemplify and dramatise what is wrong with contemporary Britain. It is not liberal enough."

The Lib Dem leader bemoans the fact that the bottom 20% pay more tax as a proportion of their income "even after Brown's credits" than the top 20% and calls it wrong that a "greedy banker in the City" pays a lower rate of tax (on capital gains) than his cleaner does on their wages.

The party's tax proposals, which will raise the personal allowance, are something "very liberal", he insists.

But it is not just the pursuit of a liberal economic and social agenda that drives him. Critically it is also a desire to reform the political system so that people who back those views are fully and fairly represented in parliament. The fight for proportional representation rests at the heart of his beliefs and there would be pressure from his own party to pursue it – above all else – in hung-parliament negotiations with either Labour or the Tories.

Clegg says he can barely keep a straight face when Cameron talks of representing the "great ignored". He describes the first-past-the-post electoral system as a "two-party stitch-up" that "explicitly locks out and ignores millions of British people". And he is also angry with Labour, which pledged to reform the system in its 1997 manifesto but failed to do anything about it during 13 years in power.

The two main parties, he argues, are bankrolled by their vested interests – "the militant trade unions" on the one hand, and "offshore donors from some island hideout in Belize" on the other. "What distinguishes liberalism from socialism and conservatism is that it does not hold any vested interest. It does not believe society should be organised by lining up one class against another," he says.

But what about criticisms of the Liberal Democrats? Isn't Clegg's party the one that bends its message to suit its audience? Clegg is quick to respond, dismissing the claim as an illusion.

Single mothers in Cornwall care just as much about fair taxes as those on council estates in Newcastle, he says. "There are millions of people up and down the country who worry about the lack of affordable housing, that their children cannot find a job, are furious about the banks, are livid about the corruption of Westminster and those are our messages, those are our messages."

Clegg likes to think of himself as one of the few political leaders who is willing to admit when he has been wrong – and today he does so on the euro. He says that people like him who "celebrated" the emergence of the single currency have to accept that the eurozone's interest rates would have been bad for the British economy. "I would not advocate entry now," he says. But he remains fiercely pro-European and believes there is a long-term case to be made.

When it comes to the row about state versus society, he tries to explain where his party stands: "What the state is about in a liberal society, is not to try and pull all these levers from Whitehall, like Brown has done, still less to patronise as in David Cameron's vision, by employing an army of 5,000 neighbouring busybodies. It's much more radical."

Only the state, says Clegg, is powerful enough to change the structural unfairness in life. "The unfairness is in the tax system and education."

The party's flagship education policy is the "pupil premium" that will mean an additional £2,500 for each of the 1 million poorest children in the country. Clegg applauds Labour policy to target urban poverty but claims the party has missed the "invisible poor", spread out through rural Britain.

And then he makes a pitch sure to appeal to teachers by slamming league tables that compare schools in deprived communities with those in affluent areas and treat them as if they do not face different circumstances. His party would compare like with like, he says.

As for Ofsted, the regulator, he would clip its wings. "There is a core function for Ofsted but it has become a great sprawling inspectorate that terrorises headteachers and teachers and most importantly has a methodology, the methodology imposed on it by the government, which doesn't do credit to those schools which have done great things in difficult circumstances and doesn't put enough pressure on schools that are coasting in areas that they could stretch their pupils more."

Clegg becomes animated as he takes a bash at the independent sector, arguing that the "cardboard cut-out assertion" that all private schools are great and all state schools are not is rubbish. "I have state schools in Sheffield which are immeasurably better than lots of private schools. Some of the worst [schools] are private schools."

Having exhausted the subjects of economic liberalism and schools, Clegg calls for more coffee and then turns to the emotive issues of tobacco, alcohol and drugs. "Smoking ban? I'd leave it as it is," he says, without hesitation. Isn't that a strange stance for a liberal? "It goes right back to the liberal tests of harm, to John Stuart Mill. People should be free to do what they want but not when it harms other people," says Clegg – who admits he still smokes the odd cigarette.

Asked about proposals to ban people smoking in cars, he hesitates. "Hmmm," says Clegg. "No. If you get to that point you may as well ban tobacco." For Clegg being a liberal means he has to draw a line – and he does not believe the state should step into people's private space. "I hope people realise that [smoking in front of a baby] is a very selfish thing to do," he says, perhaps naively.

As for alcohol, he supports further regulation, describing it as "completely unsustainable and unjustifiable" that he sees small bottles of vodka on sale for less than the price of VAT and duty combined. He insists the Lib Dems would not allow alcohol to be sold as a loss-leader, below cost price.

As for drugs, the party would first and foremost "respect science". He shakes his head as he talks about the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which he says is now "entirely impotent and dysfunctional" because of years of Labour populism during which ministers disfigured the evidence linking drugs and harm.

Seven members of the advisory council have now resigned since its chairman, David Nutt, was controversially sacked after criticising government policy. Nutt was attacked after claiming that taking ecstasy was no more harmful than riding a horse.

"What I would like to see is that the ACMD has complete independence in statute," says Clegg. And if the council makes "uncomfortable" recommendations then, he says, his party would show political leadership.

Clegg's policies on drugs are unquestionably liberal. He is lively and fluent as he slams government policy, complaining that too many addicts are being criminalised instead of treated.

We move on to another strand of liberalism – to take climate change seriously. "There were floods in 2007 and a child lost his life. The volatile behaviour of climate is real," says Clegg. But boosting green policies is also about rebuilding the British economy "on different foundations than the economy which just imploded in our face".

The prospect of a hung parliament has made the Lib Dems – and Clegg – relevant in a way they have not been before. That is why he keeps being asked which of the two other parties he feels closer to. Clegg is fiercely critical of both Brown and Cameron, and says that if no party held a majority, his agenda would be to push for key Lib Dem policies on tax, education, banking and cleaner politics. But he also admits there would be advantages from parties "working together" instead of engaging in yet more bitter rows that alienate the electorate.

Think about voters in Sheffield, he says, who will not vote for the Tories and who are dependent on the public sector. They would be furious if Cameron's party used a tiny majority to "slash and burn" services in their region, where it has no representation. At this point Clegg does not hold back, warning of "Greek-style unrest". And though he refuses steadfastly to align himself more closely to one party than another, it is David Cameron's Tories that come under his fiercest fire.

Yes, Labour has "betrayed the progressive cause", destroyed civil liberties and taken the country into Iraq, he says. But the Conservatives are guilty of "breathtaking cynicism and frankly arrogance".

"The Tories are fake, you can't trust them," he says. "I mean how can you trust people who say they believe in dealing with poverty and then give tax breaks to millionaires? How can you believe people who say they care about the environment and then jump into bed with climate change [sceptics] in Europe? How can you believe they want new politics when they have been covering up for Lord Ashcroft?"

Cameron thinks he can "spin" his way into No 10, adds Clegg, accusing the Tories of taking the public for fools with unfunded promises. "It's just unbelievable. This used to be the party of fiscal responsibility and they have now become the party of funny money."

Clegg believes Cameron's party has "peaked in the south-west" where money from Lord Ashcroft has been pouring in to help win back seats taken by the Lib Dems. For voters in that region and across the country, Clegg has a simple message: "Look. You don't need to settle for this tired old contest between Labour and the Tories. Just dip your toe in this election and vote this time to do something different."

Nick Clegg on
The need for proportional representation

It is hard to comment on David Cameron's talk of representing the "great ignored" and keep a straight face when he wants to maintain the old two-party stitch-up, which is cemented by an electoral system that explicitly locks out and ignores millions of British people.

The state of the opinion polls

I think they tell us that the election is wide open and all bets are off.

Being a liberal

Liberalism starts and finishes with a philosophical view that there is something extraordinary about every individual. A liberal believes that you should be trying to release potential, create opportunity, remove barriers to social progress, liberate social mobility.

Whether a hung parliament would be good for the country

I am not going to go out campaigning for a hung parliament. But do I think politicians working together can be a good thing? Of course it can be.

Sales of cheap alcohol

I wandered into a supermarket in Sheffield the other day to have a look at the prices of these small bottles of vodka. They now sell at below the price of VAT and duty combined. For some reason we are sitting here perfectly relaxed about the idea that our supermarkets sell alcohol - which is a drug - as a loss leader. Of course that needs to change.

Drugs policy

A liberal approach is, at first, respect science. Put the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs on a statutory independent footing so that it can issue recommendations independently and cannot be short-circuited or second-guessed. Second, treat drug addiction for what in many cases it is, which is a problem which needs to be solved as much by health professionals as it does by clobbering people in the courts.

Changing school league tables to better reflect achievement

I am really supportive of the idea that crude league tables are not providing people with fair comparisons between schools. They are not acknowledging that schools operate in different contexts and have very different intakes. The current system is unfair on those schools that have done a phenomenal job improving performance but are catering for children with very difficult backgrounds.

His previous enthusiasm for UK entry to the euro

I accept that being part of the euro for the last few years would have been bad for the economy and indeed that I wouldn't advocate entry now.

Vince Cable getting all the praise

There's somehow a hidden assumption that I wouldn't celebrate the fact that Vince is now the most trusted politician. It's like asking a cricket captain, do you mind that you have the best batsman on your team? No. he's absolutely brilliant.

Climate change and green policies

We must invest in infrastructure, particularly energy infrastructure but also affordable housing, insulation of public buildings and greener transport. They are very job-rich ways of stimulating demand but they also create green infrastructure for the future.

The smoking ban

I'd leave it as it is. I struggled with this as a liberal. I voted for the ban in the end. It goes right back to the liberal tests of harm - people should be free to do what they want but not when it harms other people.