Analysis: Clegg conference speech 2010
Clegg’s subdued speech to the Lib Dem conference was made directly to his party, not the country at large.
By Ian Dunt
Nick Clegg had three objectives when he addressed the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool today. Firstly, he had to remind his party that the horrible storm on the horizon, the comprehensive spending review, should not cast a shadow on the fact it is finally in government. Secondly, that nothing which took place in the next few years would be against Lib Dem principles. Finally, that these irritating opinion polls might just have changed by the time of the next general election. This was not a speech over the head of his audience. This was delivered straight to the conference floor.
“Of course there are those who will condemn us. We are challenging years of political convention and tradition and our opponents will yell and scream about it. But I am so, so proud of the quiet courage and determination which you have shown through this momentous period in British political history,” Clegg told delegates. The deputy prime minister is fully aware of how endless stories of unemployment and regressive spending cuts will dent his membership. He needs to raise questions about the source of those arguments.
He did it before conference in an Independent interview in which he insisted there was no future for the Lib Dems as a left-wing alternative to Labour. Yesterday he focused on Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, branding her school of criticism “hysterical”. Today, he raised questions about the motives of the protests. Perhaps, he intimated, this is just the dying, anguished cry of the old two-party political system. After all, if entering coalition has one primary aim for the Lib Dems it’s to finally banish the argument that they are a wasted vote. “Hold our nerve and we will have changed British politics for good. Hold our nerve and we will have changed Britain for good,” he told delegates.
Of course, none of this will do any good if the party fails to overturn its pitiful poll ratings. As Labour catches up the Tories – even without a leader – the Lib Dems continue to suffer the consequences of entering government. Wiser voices in the Lib Dems – and in Fleet Street – call for calm. The general election is still a long way off.
“The immediate future will not be easy, but the long term prize is great,” Clegg assured party members. “I want you to imagine what you will say to people when you knock on their door at the next general election. Imagine how it will feel to say that in government, Liberal Democrats have restored civil liberties, scrapped ID cards, and got innocent people’s DNA off the police database.”
This is an important message, and a simple one: don’t panic. The real test comes not now, in the relatively benign environment of the coalition’s honeymoon and – crucially – before next month’s spending review, but during the next conference. Even next year’s spring conference will be tougher, taking place right after what will be a brutal local elections for the Lib Dems.
After that, it was all mopping up – making sure the party could bask in the new experience of being in government. Clegg was keen to ram that home by reminding his audience that their views finally mattered. “I still think the war in Iraq was illegal,” he told them. “The difference is lawyers now get anxious when I mention it.” They don’t of course, but no sentence better summarised his pitch: I haven’t changed. The Lib Dems haven’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is our proximity to power. “I still campaign for political reform. The difference is I’m now legislating for it as well,” he added.
As if to seal the argument, Clegg forced Lib Dems to face up to the alternatives available to the Lib Dem negotiating team in May. He did this in a surprisingly candid manner, adopting a rhetoric not unlike that you would read in a newspaper. “Some say we shouldn’t have gone into government at a time when spending had to be cut,” Clegg told conference. “We should have let the Conservatives take the blame, waited on the sidelines, ready to reap the political rewards. Maybe that’s what people expected from a party that has been in opposition for 65 years. People have got used to us being outsiders, against every government that’s come along. Maybe we got used to it ourselves. But the door to the change we want was opened, for the first time in generations.” This is an intelligent tactic. The occasional use of alarming honesty, of knowing just when to poke the audience with a phrase which hurts but doesn’t alienate, is an undervalued political skill. It is one Clegg employed to great effect.
Of course, there was the mandatory attempt to frame the deficit reduction plan in the language of progressive politics. Clegg deployed the traditional examples for this section, reminding his audience of the “invisible” crisis and how it makes any future egalitarianism more difficult. He also reiterated anti-bank measures (far more modest than he insinuated today), unveiled some underwhelming local council reforms and returned to his much-trailed anti-tax evasion agenda.
Importantly, and this is really the nub of it, he also tried to neutralise the argument that the cuts are ultimately ideological – that the Tories would be doing it anyway. “It’s not smaller government I believe in. It’s a different kind of government: a liberating government,” he offered.
It’s a remarkably tight and intellectually honest speech, although not one that’s ever going to raise the roof. Clegg’s insistence on the necessity of cuts and the need to play the political long game will be severely tested in conferences to come.
