Backlash for Nick Clegg over immigration speech

By Harry Phibbs
^{Follow Harry on Twitter}

I sometimes feel that Conservative Party members don't take their role sufficiently seriously in terms of contributing to policy. However, the excruciating self importance of Lib Dem policy group members is hardly something one would wish to emulate.

Over at Lib Dem Voice a group of them are grumbling, having been provoked by Nick Clegg's recent speech on immigration. They seem to think that decisions on governing the country should wait upon the Deputy Prime Minister obtaining due authority from the gaggle of bearded sandal wearers at his Party's annual seaside gathering.

The group complains:

As members of the body setting up a review of Liberal Democrat policy on immigration and identity under Andrew Stunell MP, or members of the review itself, we feel the need to put a few facts in the public domain following Nick Clegg’s speech on Friday.

It would have been helpful had we been made aware of the contents in advance. It would have been very helpful if members of the Policy Working Group had been sent an embargoed copy of the speech the night before.

This is not just procedural fuss pottery. They are also objecting to the substance of what Mr Clegg was saying. In his speech Mr Clegg said he wanted to ditch the Lib Dem policy of giving an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Lib Dem President Tim Farron says the Tories could "go off to the far right"

By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter.

A Wikipedia summary of far right ideology:

"The far right is commonly associated with persons or groups who hold extreme nationalist, xenophobic, racist, religious fundamentalist or reactionary views.The most extreme-right movements have pursued oppression and genocide against groups of people on the basis of their alleged inferiority."

Lib Dem President Tim Farron speaking on the Week in Westminster today:

"From an entirely partisan point of view, I rub my hands together with glee and think well, David Cameron, if you want to go off to the far right, you’ll find there are very few votes there. You only win elections in the centre ground, and David Cameron seems to be completely vacating it."

There are two ridiculous points made here. Firstly, the idea that David Cameron or the Conservatives would "go off to the far right". It is so utterly un-serious that it hardly merits any response. The second point is that Mr Farron implies there is no ideological space between "the centre ground" and "the far right". One can either be in the centre or the "far right" in Mr Farron's world.

Mr Farron periodically pops up to make these outrageously facile statements. He once said Thatcherism was an "organised wickedness". Goodness knows where Mrs Thatcher is on Mr Farron's farcical ranking of right-wing politics - and indeed what that says about his view of the British people who elected her thrice.

Lib Dem conference rolling blog - highlights of the party's anti-Tory positioning

Wednesday, 12.30pm:

It’s the final day of the Liberal Democrat conference, and so the final day of our intermittent live blog totting up all the anti-Tory positioning going on. And, in terms of rhetoric, it’s probably the quietest day so far: the overriding theme of Nick Clegg’s forthcoming speech is that the Lib Dems are now a “party of government”, and so his colleagues are on best behaviour this morning. Even Simon Hughes has been talking about the need for a decade of austerity.

But that isn’t to say that, in terms of substance, the Liberal Democrats have refrained from causing trouble for the Tories. In fact, they have passed two particular conference motions dismissing government plans. The first came last night, when they voted against the Justice and Security Bill, and particularly its proposals around “secret justice” courts. The second was this morning, with a resounding vote against Eric Pickles’ proposal to relax the planning laws around house extensions (the prospect of which Harry wrote about here). The Lib Dem councillor Chris White took the opportunity to swipe at Mr Pickles, as the BBC reports:

“Councillor Chris White, from St Albans, has delivered a stinging rebuke to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, the minister responsible for the reforms. Mr Pickles harbours a ‘shoot-from-the-hip, issue-a-press-release-for-the-Sunday-papers attitude’, Mr White says. 'It is time to say enough is enough, let's try to get it right.'"

None of this is necessarily fatal to the government’s plans —people about the Lib Dem leadership are talking about these votes being advisory, rather than binding — but, at the very least, they increase the headwinds that Mr Clegg, and the Coalition, are operating against.

Senior Tories increasingly see Clegg as a drag on whole Coalition, not just Lib Dems

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

At the time of the tuition fees row Mr Clegg insisted that he wouldn't apologise. It's a sign of the weakness of his political position that he now feels the need to do so.

Will it work? I'm doubtful. The Tory leadership is doubtful too. Clegg's ratings are even more dismal than his own party's. An increasing number of leading Tories now think that it might be better if the Lib Dems did choose a new leader. One Cabinet minister told me that Clegg is so toxic that he doesn't just contaminate the Lib Dem brand he contaminates the whole Coalition. "Voters see 'the liar' sat next to the Prime Minister in the Commons and it's not good for them and it's not good for us," I was told.

If Vince Cable wants to remain in Cabinet he must denounce Labour's economic policies in clear and unambiguous terms

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

Returning to a theme that he launched two weeks ago, we have renewed confirmation this morning from John Rentoul of simmering tensions at the top of the Labour Party. Mr Rentoul uses his Independent on Sunday column to insist they "everyone" at the top of Her Majesty's Opposition knows that there is a feud between the two Eds, Balls and Miliband. The only unknown thing, he writes, is the intensity of the feud.

The two Eds, however, seems more interested in forming an alliance with Vince Cable than repairing their own relationship. Two days ago the Labour leader told journalists that he had a textual relationship with the Business Secretary and the man very likely to be Lib Dem leader by the time of the next election. Today it's Mr Balls who is wooing Mr Cable. This is what he writes in the Sunday Mirror:

"In his heart of hearts, Lib Dem Business ­Secretary Vince Cable must know that Plan A is not working. After all, before the last election, he warned – with Labour – that David Cameron and George Osborne’s policies would backfire. And sadly our warnings came true. So let’s work together on new ideas to create jobs and build our way out of recession."

The ball is now firmly in Mr Cable's court. It's not enough for him to say that he simply supports existing Government policy. We need him to state clearly and very strongly that the fiscal policies of Ed Balls - which, by some estimates, would add £200 billion to Britain's debt burden - are irresponsible and that until Labour returns to fiscal sanity then Labour are unfit for office.

Let's hear it Mr Cable and soon. If we don't hear it we can only assume you are indeed preparing for some sort of alliance with the two Eds.

As President Hollande's retreat from his pre-election promises shows, there is no alternative in this current crisis to the kind of difficult deficit reduction path that Britain's Coalition has embarked upon.

10am update...

Vince Cable was just on Andrew Marr and didn't dampen speculation about him joining up with Labour. He described himself as a politician of the Left because, he said, he believed in fairness and distribution. Some on the Right believe in those things too! Janet Daley does a good job of attacking the idea that left equals compassion in today's Sunday Telegraph.

Cameron thinks Clegg's leadership "very precarious". Are more concessions to Liberal Democrats on the way?

By Tim Montgomerie
_{Follow Tim on Twitter}

The Conservatives are allegedly Britain's most ruthless party but when it comes to ousting leaders we're amateurs when compared to the Liberal Democrats. Since David Cameron became Tory leader he has seen the yellow party oust Charles Kennedy (because of his drinking problems) and Ming Campbell (because of his age). Will the Lib Dems be making a third change soon?

I've thought for some time that it's a matter of when Clegg will step down/ be replaced. Only a new leader like Vince Cable can start to win back support from the legions of left-leaning voters who have deserted the Liberal Democrats since the party entered government with the Conservatives. Today's Sun reports that David Cameron has concluded that the Deputy PM's position is, indeed, “very precarious”. It follows a poll by the LibDemVoice website which found that 46% of party members wanted Nick Clegg to stand down as leader by the time of the next election (some, like me and Lembit Opik (!), think he could stay as Deputy PM).

The thought of Clegg being ousted terrifies Cameron. He knows that all of the likely alternative Lib Dem leaders would be less supportive of a continuing relationship with the Conservatives. He may feel he needs to do all he can in the coming months to bolster the Deputy PM's standing in his party. It certainly explains why he has quietly accepted Clegg's wounding betrayal on boundary changes. Further appeasement will, of course, will anger Conservative backbenchers but it will also prove my rule of the Coalition that it was always likely to drift Leftwards or break up.

PS On Platform today we publish a terrifying piece from Mark Gettleson. He looks at the extent to which Labour may be winning back voters who defected to the Liberal Democrats since 1997 overm for example, the Iraq war. He looks at the seats where Tory MPs are vulnerable if they continue to succeed in doing so.

By 48% to 19%, Lib Dem members prefer coalition with Labour

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

ConHome keeps warning (eg here, here and here) that the Liberal Democrats will most likely choose an alliance with Labour if the next election results in another minority government situation and the arithmetic makes a Lib/Lab pact feasible. It's likely because (1) the LibDems will want to prove to voters that they are not in any one party's pockets and (2) the LibDems are, at heart, a Left-leaning party.

I wrote about this second factor in Saturday's Daily Mail:

"The fact is [Cameron] knows [Clegg] is the only senior Lib Dem who could have led the party into coalition with the Conservatives. All of Clegg’s three predecessors as leader — Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell — were men of the Left and would not have countenanced such a deal. Their support for higher income tax, opposition to Britain’s nuclear deterrent and soft policies on crime prove their visceral anti-Tory views. And if Clegg does not survive as party leader, his likely successors are cut from similar cloth. Vince Cable, party president Tim Farron and deputy leader Simon Hughes all favour more taxes, more regulation and more Europe. As for the party’s rank and file, two thirds describe themselves as Left-wing. Their hearts are with Labour."

And to prove my point LibDemVoice has just published a poll which finds that, by 48% to 19%, Nick Clegg's members prefer a post-2015 alliance with Labour rather than any continuing pact with Tories.

Cameron aims for a majority of his own or the Conservatives will probably find themselves out of power.

Surprise, surprise — Lord Oakeshott says that Cable should replace Osborne

By Peter Hoskin
Follow Peter on Twitter

Conservative minister in a spot of bother? Step forward the Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott to aggravate the situation. He's already called for Jeremy Hunt to resign this year, and now he's sharpening his knives at George Osborne. Speaking to The World At One, he said:

“Any business failing its key objective like this would change its strategy or its management or probably both ... Britain should do the same now with a bold plan A-plus. We need our A team at the Treasury.”

Of course, Oakeshott and Osborne have previous. It was only a few weeks ago that he was saying the Chancellor should “focus now totally on the day job”. And, before that, he departed from the Treasury team in protest at Project Merlin.

The Lib Dem leadership race has started

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter

In last Monday's Times (£) I wondered if electorates would start to turn to politicians with a little more grey hair (or a little less hair generally) in these tricky times:

"Americans, like voters in other parts of the world, are wondering if today’s politicians are somehow smaller than those of a generation ago. They are certainly younger. Obama was 22 years younger than Reagan when each first became president. Margaret Thatcher was ten years older than David Cameron when both began their premierships. Both of today’s transatlantic leaders have 20 years’ less life experience than China’s President. Previous leaders used those 10-20 extra years to run a business, command men in uniform or raise a family. I don’t think we look back at previous leaders through rose-tinted spectacles. We see them as better performers because they were better prepared. In benign times politicians could get away with simply looking and sounding the part. Today, when the challenges are so great, we are ruled by leaders who have spent their whole shortish lives doing little else other than preparing press releases, speeches and attack strategies."

Vince Cable seems to have taken this to heart. He didn't stand for the Lib Dem leadership when Ming Campbell stood down because he thought he was too old. No longer. He told the FT that “the worship of youth has diminished — perhaps generally — in recent years” and voters have a renewed respect for “people who have had some insight into what is going on”. Some polling today suggests that he might be correct. Asked by YouGov who should replace George Osborne as Chancellor if he was reshuffled and the Lib Dem Business Secretary is voters' top choice. 22% choose Mr Cable versus 16% choosing William Hague and 9% Clarke. The numbers don't just suggest that Mr Cable has overcome the age issue they suggest he's quite popular too.

As figures reveal Lib Dem membership has shrunk by 20% we also learn that Cable speaks regularly with Ed Miliband

By Tim Montgomerie
_{Follow Tim on Twitter}

One of the more remarkable things about the Lib/Con Coalition is the absence of disunity on the central project of deficit reduction. I would also have predicted that a Lib Dem backbencher might have defected by now. Despite real tensions on the government benches it hasn't happened. What is happening, however, is a big fall in Lib Dem membership as party activists give up on Nick Clegg and his cohabitation with the Conservatives.

One big sign came before the recent local elections when the Lib Dems struggled to field candidates in crucial wards. Now the Independent on Sunday is reporting that party membership has fallen by 20% since the formation of the Coalition:

• Membership is falling fastest in seats held by Government ministers - offering an interesting counterpoint to the general view that the Lib Dem vote is holding up better in seats that they currently hold.
• The minister who lost most members was Sarah Teather in Brent. 42% of her members fell away.
• Membership is also down particularly sharply in Scotland where the drop equals 26%.
• The Lib Dem student movement is half the size it was before Nick Clegg's spectacular U-turn on tuition fees.

The Left of the Liberal Democrats may be looking for an escape route via Labour. The Sunday Telegraph reports that a variety of Nick Clegg's colleagues are in regular contact with aides to Ed Miliband and the Labour leader himself. "One Labour source revealed Mr Cable and Mr Miliband spoke regularly by telephone". Other communicants include Ming Campbell, Tim Farron, Simon Hughes and serial trouble-maker Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott.