Is Nick Clegg the biggest hypocrite in British politics?
The neutering of the Recall Bill is only the latest piece of humbug from the Lib Dem leader
By Robert Colvile
12:26PM BST 20 Oct 2014
“This country deserves better than the tawdry Westminster politics we get from Labour and the Tories – and I am going to keep hammering away at the system every single day, because bit by bit that system will break to let the people in.”
Whose recent party conference speech is this taken from? It certainly sounds an awful lot like Nigel Farage, with its outsider, smash-the-system message. But no: the speaker is the chap whose name and picture adorn the top of this article: Nick Clegg.
But that’s a bit strange, because tomorrow, Clegg will introduce the Recall of MPs Bill for its Second Reading in Parliament. And that Bill doesn’t “let the people in” at all. On the contrary – it keeps them firmly in their grubby little place.
As today's Telegraph’s leader explains, the idea of recall (which went rapidly up the political agenda after the expenses scandal five years ago) is that if a set proportion of an MP’s constituents petition for their removal, a by-election is triggered.
Alas, the plans fell into the hands of dear old Nick. The result was a Bill which permits voters to recall MPs only if they’ve been convicted of a crime, or suspended from the Commons. In other words, an idea intended to set the voters up as judge and jury has consigned them to the role of occasional executioner – under circumstances so limited that the right will hardly ever be invoked.
How on earth can that be described as “hammering away at the system”, or taking on “tawdry Westminster politics”? It can’t. But that’s classic Clegg – he’s a politician whose defining feature is his capacity not just to engage in acts of hypocrisy, but to continue preaching to the rest of us about our sins as if nothing has happened. On issue after issue, Clegg’s capacity for the volte face is unmatched.
Consider the following:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/11174093/Is-Nick-Clegg-the-biggest-hypocrite-in-British-politics.html