The Lib Dem leadership campaign is quite difficult for me in some respects as I know both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne well. I suppose there are many people in the party in a similar position and have to make a difficult decision to, effectively, decide which of your friends you are going to snub. But for me it is made more complicated as I am, as far as I know, the only person in the Liberal Democrats who has been employed by both of them. I have no doubt that Nick is the best candidate, and have known him from well before I worked for either him or Chris, but I like to consider both of them as friends. Which is why I felt a little awkward when I came face to face with Chris as I did at yesterday’s hustings in Leeds. But despite that feeling of awkwardness I came away from yesterday’s hustings feeling so cross, I have to write something about how negative Chris Huhne is getting at hustings meetings, something which Mark Valladares has already mentioned on his blog.
During the question and answer session at yesterday’s Leeds hustings, Chris Huhne raised the issue of ’school vouchers’ and challenged Nick to say that he opposed them. I suppose that is fair enough, but he then went on to imply that Nick Clegg is lying when he makes it clear that he doesn’t support them. This is apparently because, according to Chris, two journalists have said that Nick does back them. Firstly, as a Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne should be well aware that the press often misrepresent where the party stands on different issues. Secondly, Chris knows full well what Nick has said on this subject before as he has repeated it often enough. But thirdly, to imply that Nick is lying on the subject just because of what two journalists have said, ends up doing the dirty work for the other parties as they will also undoubtedly start telling the electorate that it is what the Lib Dems believe despite what they say. The Nick Clegg campaign has a tape recording of the interviews Nick gave and it is clear that he did not support vouchers, but does instead support the idea of ‘pupil premiums’ where schools who take children from poorer backgrounds get more money for each one.
I am starting to worry that Chris is becoming the candidate that will say anything to get elected. I have never believed that Chris is this lefty, radical, activist candidate that he is trying to portray himself as. Indeed, whilst I agree that as Lib Dems we should stop using the terms left and right as they are far too simplistic to explain our political stance on different issues, I had always perceived Chris as being more on the right than Nick on many issues. Not only that, Chris also seems to be saying things just for effect, but then when no one is listening he adds a caveat to that view. Such as, no to Trident (but lets just have a smaller nuclear bomb instead), English votes for English MPs (but only when we have PR), and refusing to have an ID card (but law makers also shouldn’t be law breakers). I am not saying that Chris is wrong on these issues, and on some of them Nick has agreed with his views, but it means that he is increasingly looking as though he isn’t quite what he seems.
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14 responses so far ↓
Linda Jack // 4 November 2007 at 7:21 pm |
Yes Anders, I really share your unease. I was put off Huhne in the last election by some of the subtly snide comments he made at hustings. On one occasion he left me feeling he was even willing to use the whole debacle over Simon’s sexuality to his own ends (don’t ask what he said, I can’t remember, but I can remember coming away feeling uncomfortable and cross!). He made it very clear today on Sunday Edition that he is not a unilateralist on Trident, he then tried to imply that the other differences between him and Nick were around equality (?) and marketisation (?). I have discussed both issues with Nick in the past and really don’t know what Chris is trying to say. So, yes, Chris appears to be playing to the gallery, but with enough caveats to wriggle out of any apparent commitments once he is in power. Scary! He also denied he was of the left, saying he would appeal to Tories. I don’t buy the line about there not being left and right – and in anycase even if we don’t buy it, the electorate do and are quite prepared to define themselves on a left right spectrum. Yes we must put the liberal-authoritarian spectrum on the map – but we won’t do that by trying to pretend left and right are dead.
Yellowbelly // 4 November 2007 at 8:11 pm |
Linda, you really are beconig the Clegg-apologist-in chief!
I thought Chris was very clear on the Sunday Edition, he’s coming over as far more coherent than Clegg, which is porbably why blogspace is full of ‘Cleggy’ postings from his supporters.
Face it Chris was first to get w web site up, first to declare as candidate, and first to produce a detailed manifesto.
Despite Clegg’s huff and puff, Chris is setting the agenda in this campaign.
notanorangebooker // 4 November 2007 at 10:26 pm |
Anders – Nick could easily stop this if he came out and said that he was opposed to vouchers – but he hasn’t, and I suspect he won’t, either because he really believes in them or because he doesn’t want to upset his right-wing backers.
In the meantime the debate over whether we believe public services should stay public or should be replaced by an insurance/voucher one is a real one that deserves to be discussed. We’ve reached a sad state as a party if we’re not allowed to discuss policies without accusations of being negative!
It seems to me that Nick doesn’t want to discuss issues at all, which is why whenever Chris talks about policy points of difference between them Nick gets all defensive!
Anders Hanson // 4 November 2007 at 10:59 pm |
Yellowbelly – given that Chris had stood before it is hardly surprising that he was first to do all the things you say. His website from last time was still running, he already knew who his supporters were from last time and he did the work on a manifesto last time too. Although Nick said that he wasn’t interested in standing one day, he wasn’t expecting it to happen now.
notanorangebooker – if you read what I wrote I am not complaining that Chris has raised that he is against vouchers. What I did say is that Chris’ campaign is becoming negative and far more aggressive than it needs to be. I was shocked at is behaviour in Leeds yesterday. Having read Chris’ manifesto, the vast majority is already party policy, but don’t forget we are only two weeks in and I am sure that Nick will clarify his policies as it progresses.
ralph pryke // 4 November 2007 at 11:26 pm |
Anders – what you didn’t mention is that you were acting as senior aide to Nick yesterday from the moment you escorted him into the Civic Hall, so none of us will be surprised by your partiality. It was unusual but only slightly enlightening that coincidence allowed Mark Valladares to put up three blog entries on a hustings day, but he did remark to me yesterday evening that Nick’s stump speech is always the same (Mark was at Newbury as well as Derby and Leeds) but that Chris’s evolves and covers different subjects. Like Yellowbelly, I’m starting to think that Cleggies like Linda are starting to harm Nick by, well, protesting too much.
Anders Hanson // 5 November 2007 at 1:17 am |
Ralph – Anyone who reads this website knows I am involved in his campaign, which is hardly a surprise given that his local party pays for my salary. But yes, I along with three other people were at the conference all day handing out leaflets for Nick even before he arrived. I think saying that I am a ’senior’ aide is a bit far fetched.
All I have done with this posting it say it as I found it. It was the first hustings I had seen and I was genuinely disappointed with Chris’ approach. You say that “Cleggies” are protesting too much, but this is the first negative posting I have made about Chris and I am not sure anyone has any influence over what Linda writes. But at the end of the day the vast majority of the voters won’t read what is written on websites like mine, so I hardly think that it is going to swing the election for or against any candidate.
Sam // 5 November 2007 at 8:10 am |
I would like to hear Nick actually rule out vouchers. What he tends to do is to talk about pupil premiums, to use rhetoric which talks a lot about choice, but not actually say that he is against vouchers.
I would also like to hear him spell out that he no longer goes along with insurance schemes to pay for health care. Again, he doesn’t do this.
Nick does give the impression that he is using vague rhetoric in order to please the right without spelling out enough detail to lose his support on the left. It seems to me that it is legitimate debate, rather than negative campaigning, for Chris to try to flush this out.
My fear is that he knows he wants to be leader, but doesn’t really know what direction he will take the party when he gets there. Chris seems much clearer on this front.
What is negative is Nick damning Chris with faint praise about his success at developing green policy while suggesting that he has failed to do a good job of getting the message across.
And the tendency of the likes of Linda to reprint rubbish from the press about his shareholdings.
Anonymous // 5 November 2007 at 9:16 am |
I can’t understand why some Lib Dems are demonising vouchers. They have been used for over 90 years in the Netherlands, and that country is much more equal society than UK. All Dutch children get education, and even the more disadvanteged families have a choice to which school they will send their children. School vouchers aren’t considered there as some kind of Right wing scheme. Perhaps the UK system could as well be called communistic.
Sam // 5 November 2007 at 9:49 am |
Personally I think vouchers could work, but only if other things are changed as well – higher funding per pupil, plenty of spare capacity in schools, smaller schools and class sizes.
These other factors that tend to be in place where voucher schemes work and, in my view, probably have mnore to do with positive outcomes than the sytem itself.
What worries me is those politicians that think they are a ‘quick fix’.
Andy Mayer // 5 November 2007 at 1:49 pm |
“Personally I think vouchers could work, but only if other things are changed as well – higher funding per pupil, plenty of spare capacity in schools, smaller schools and class sizes.”
So in that respect Clegg would be wrong to rule out vouchers wouldn’t he…
I don’t think much of Chris’s manifesto commitment to rule them out entirely. The only thing that changes with explicit vouchers is the transfer of a decision on how to spend a sum of money attached to the needs of your child from the LEA to you.
Today we have implicit vouchers, the pupil premium is an extension of that idea. The LEA spends those vouchers on behalf of parents.
There are good arguments both ways on whether or not that privilege should transfer from the LEA to parents. I’d be minded to let local authorities decide on which works better for their area.
Chris’s problem here then is his manifesto claims he’s got this funky radical democratic decentalising agenda, but when it comes to a difficult issue like vouchers where there is a good compelling case for letting local people decide through the ballot box, he remains committed to central control.
Anonymous // 5 November 2007 at 5:04 pm |
“These other factors that tend to be in place where voucher schemes work and, in my view, probably have mnore to do with positive outcomes than the sytem itself.”
Just adding these other factors to the British system wouldn’t increase in any way the possibilities of the disadvanteged families to choose to which school they want to put their children. In the Netherlands one can for instance choose of several different educational methods, regardless of the wealth of the family.
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