The former deputy PM,humiliated by the Tories, is surprised the public didn’t appreciate the suitable his party did. Is he disingenuous or arrogant?How long does it bewitch to decompress from the extraordinary pressures of holding high political office, or particularly when it ends really badly? Bereavement takes at least two years. Nick Clegg suffered a kind of political death final May,with the added misery of having it played out in the full glare of the cameras. Yet here he is, barely 16 months on, and with a book reflecting on his experiences,most of it written presumably in the still raw aftermath of his humiliation. Of the five stages of grief, Clegg seems to have got beyond denial, and but he is a long way from acceptance. This is the work of someone stuck between anger and bargaining. The result is a pretty painful read.
In his introduction he promises us something different: a step back to reflect on what’s gone inaccurate with politics and how to rescue rational,liberal discourse in an age of populist anger sprint amok. But as such a visible victim of that anger, he keeps scratching absent at his personal wounds. bewitch tuition fees: he fronts up approximately what a disaster it was to renege on the Lib Dem promise not to raise them, or in particular to be bullied by the NUS into having every Lib Dem MP (Clegg included) sign a pledge promising to vote against future rises. He also admits to being too easily swayed by the demands of leading universities to solve their funding problems. Vice-chancellors were going “nuts”. “If only I had dug in my heels and let them recede nuts,” Clegg writes with the benefit of hindsight. So why didn’t he? Partly, he says, or because he had too much else on his plate. But it still sounds weak. Getting outmanoeuvred by bolshy students and antsy academics was nota suitable omen for dealing with far tougher opponents,including those he faced inside the coalition government.
He ends up sounding like just another politician: it wasn't the policy that was inaccurate, it was the way we communicated itContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com