Sketch: Anger at Clegg boils over
MPs allowed their evident irritation at Nick Clegg’s new status to overwhelm them. The deputy prime minister handled it rather well.
By Ian Dunt
They really do hate him. Personally, I’ve always had a lot of time for disrespect and abuse as a sporting pursuit. But the anger directed at Nick Clegg did not have the kind of wit or aloofness to make it enjoyable. It seemed merely childlike.
It began almost as soon as he stood for his first speech at the despatch box, after an interminably lengthy amendment by Jack Straw. The noise came quickly. Shouts, objections, jeers, laughter – Clegg was always on the receiving end of these during PMQs. Now they come from fewer mouths but are expressed more forcefully.
The first time he gave way it was to be told to get off his “high horse”. He was then interrupted by a point of order, demanding he stop referring to the opposition as ‘you’ rather than ‘honourable member’ – an accurate but tedious interruption.
“Once again, really picking up the important things in the debate,” Clegg hit back. It was at about this point that the public gallery filled up with members of the armed forces, clearly on some sort of day trip. Perhaps Labour’s rage had now reached the point where it might set off a coup. We haven’t had one of those for some time and personally I’d have enjoyed the front row seat.
By the time Clegg announced the formation of a committee on House of Lords reform, the anger simply boiled over. The SNP and Plaid were livid they were not invited. Labour was livid it was no longer the one making laws. Clegg attempted to stop giving way, making up for earlier in the statement, when he was rather too generous for those of us hoping to make it home for tea time. Opponents got around it by demanding entirely inappropriate points of order.
The first, asking why only the three main parties had been invited to join, was merely ridiculous. The second, on the need for a vote to decide the membership of Commons committees, was simply wrong. The third saw me lose interest and I must confess to having forgotten it. Clegg grew a little irritated. “What was customary in the last 13 years was that an announcement like this would have been made in the press,” he said, to considerable support from the MPs behind him. Angus Robertson of the SNP began to rock back and forth in his seat shouting: “Shocking, shocking, shocking.”
So how did Clegg actually do? Well, not bad really. He was gentlemanly enough, and he managed not to lose his temper despite the provocation on offer. He played a wise card in branding many of Labour’s objections to matters such as constituency boundaries and the 55% dissolution benchmark as “outright opposition driven by a paranoid sense that everything is targeted at them”.
But Clegg’s main quality today was merely that he has time on his side. Questioned about the details of the 55% proposal, he still has the justified response to fall back on that the government has only been in power for three weeks. People are looking into Straw’s objections, he informed the shadow justice secretary.
But the time factor works the other way round as well. Labour still looks saggy and aged. Every phrase it utters seems to contrast unfavourably with its record in power. At one point Clegg was asked to look into problems around the electoral register as a matter of urgency. He was able to laugh that off with a reminder that Labour had failed to do anything of the sort in 13 years.
There are many opposition arguments to which that is currently an excellent answer. But it won’t last forever
