Gillian Duffy – she of bigotgate last year– has apparently ambushed Nick Clegg. The news story is that, she asked some questions and received precisely the replies anyone would reasonably expect. It’s a bit of a non-story in many respects, but an eye opener in others. If nothing else it is a demonstration of ignorance:
Mrs Duffy, 66, asked he why he “went in” with the Tories instead of Labour after the last General Election.
Well, there’s the little matter of electoral mathematics, as was obvious at the time. As Clegg reminded her, there was no overall majority and Clegg was faced with entering his party into a coalition with the party with the largest number of seats in order to form a government. To go into coalition with Labour – even though they did consider it – would have been pretty daft. There simply weren’t enough MPs to have made a working majority. Anyone could see that, but still we have people asking “why?” when the answer is blindingly obvious. His only other realistic option was to allow Cameron to try to form a minority government with tacit support from the LibDems, but that would have been inherently unstable. Gillian Duffy should know all of this, it’s not exactly difficult to grasp and was all over the news eleven months ago.
Unbowed, Mrs Duffy asked the Deputy Prime Minister to “look me in the eye and tell me” he was happy with the current Government cuts.
I don’t know whether he looked her in the eye or not, but, again, the response was entirely predictable. Whoever won would have made some form of cutback. That Labour have managed to propagate a belief among the gullible that they wouldn’t have done so is either an epic propaganda coup or staggering stupidity on the part of their supporters.
But Mrs Duffy responded “That’s just the same speech” she heard him give an hour earlier on the radio.
It’s called consistency. A rare enough quality in a politician, so we should applaud it when we encounter it. I really don’t know what she expected him to say. To argue that “it’s all gone wrong” is simplistic. There are many things I don’t like about this coalition – they have not swept aside the plethora of illiberal legislation put in place by their forebears, for example, but their nibbling at government spending hardly justifies the term “cuts” and is merely a reduction in the rate of increase – this government is spending more than the previous one, just not as much more as Labour would have done had they won last May.
Gillian Duffy manages to sum up the rampant stupidity endemic in the UK population and is happy enough to have it broadcast in the public media. That’s what happens when someone hits the headlines – they seem to think that we want to hear from them again when we don’t.
Clegg may not have won her vote, but he is right in what he said. As for Gillian Duffy; unless you have an intelligent question to ask, it’s probably better to remain mute. That way no one is likely to think you a fool.
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Those of you in the comments who suggested that it was a put up job, were right, it seems. The comments to the piece are revealing as well. Duffy isn’t the only one who is afflicted by arrant stupidity. The comment that she is as a first class political commentator made me laugh on the one hand and weep on the other. Truly, we are doomed.
It isn’t just Gillian Duffy who can’t understand the arithmetic that prevented a coalition with Labour. At least hald the party’s supporters seem to be having the same problem.
Does anyone really think the Democratic Unionists would have been willing to ‘sit doyn’ with Sinn Fein (who rarely turn up anyway).
And there’s the little matter of propping up a party that had manifestly lost the support of the electorate.
The only other option was as you said to support the tories without a coalition and jump when they fancied their chances, which is what their party probably would have preferred. I’m sure it came down to individual ambition on the part of the party leaders.
At least Clegg didn’t call her ‘bigoted’ behind her back. Grant him that much integrity.
Bill,
you mean at least he wasn’t so stupid to get caught saying it.
He’s been caught on mic once before so you can’t rule stupidity out.
Mrs Duffy was clearly a patsy for someone (I suspect the Daily Mirror) and, of what I saw of the encounter on C4 news last night, it looked staged.
Clearly she is as stupid as the large proportion of the population who spend their time being pummelled by whatever news paper or programme they grasp their barely formed opinions from.
I too saw it and thought the Clegg came out of it relatively well compared to Duffy. Duffy’s sounded like she has been told to ask the questions she asked because she didn’t seem to be listening to Clegg’s answer, just parroting off the questions.
There is also the point, which readers here will appreciate, but many others, still caught in the trap of Left / Right [only] will savour.
Labour had become deeply and dangerously Authoritarian.
The current tories and the Lem-o-Crats have at least some vestiges of wanting fewer petty and useless restrictions and “controls” on everyone …..
The recent move to stop councils issuing bin fines is one of those small steps. However, like their economic policy, it is nibbling at the edges. We should have had a massive repeal bill sweeping aside all the authoritarian laws passed during Labour’s 13 years of binge legislation – all the bans and the hate speech nonsense.
Likewise with spending; stop all funding to the third sector with one exception only – emergency aid. Otherwise no overseas aid, no funding of charities and get rid of the quangos. Then set about dramatically reducing the size of the government itself. Oh, yeah, and no involvement in overseas wars.
If the Lib Dems had gone into power with a coalition comprising Labour and all the other parties (i.e. SNP, DUP, Green, SDLP, Plaid Cymru, Alliance) they would have had a majority of three. And all those little minor parties would have wanted bites out of the cherry for Northern Ireland, bites out of the cherry for Scotland, a bonkers concession to greenies, concessions for Wales. It couldn’t possibly have worked. It was a non-starter. The two serious, and only real choices on the table (let’s be honest), were Tories in a minority government or Tories in a coalition with the LDs. The most stable compromise was the first one. And anyway, much as I don’t particularly have any love for the Conservatives, they were the largest party and, therefore, essentially won the election, despite the fact that they were 18 seats short of a majority.
So, yes, a Labour/Liberal Democrat/SNP/DUP/anyone but the Tories coalition was utterly unworkable, even though they would have had a (small) majority between them all because the amount of concessions required would have been far too great – plus, the slightest hint of dissent among any of the smaller parties would have brought the whole edifice crumbling down in short order.
I thought that Labour had put Duffy up to it the minute I saw it on the news. It looked contrived.
It’s reading stories like this that makes me think of Winston Churchill’s famous quote on democracy:
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”