Nick Clegg, latter-day UK Deputy Prime Minister and the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Democrats, is in the thick of some truly interesting times in British politics. Coalition life has been generally smooth for him and his party since the May 6th election, but it is also proving politically disfiguring, particularly if recent polls are to be believed.
He and the Liberal Democrats are at grave risk of being cast betwixt and between the fashionable, small-l liberalism of their philosophical cloth and the considerably less fashionable fiscal brutality being spearheaded by Chancellor George Osborne. In recent months, whatever it is that the Liberal Democrats believe seems to have been subsumed by this war that their senior Coalition partners are waging on the national debt. Are the billions of dollars of mooted public sector cuts really a function of necessity given the fiscal climate, or are they more just an expression of the Conservative Party’s base political wants after a decade in the political wilderness? It would be naive to suggest that there is not a bit of both in play.
On Tuesday last week, Clegg delivered the Hugo Young lecture at Kings Place in London, at the invitation of The Guardian. In the lecture, Clegg grapples with the question of what it means to be “progressive” in today’s political environment. We can hardly be surprised that he has spent some time considering this topic; this is a question that threatens the very identity of the Liberal Democrats as a party. Can the Liberal Democrats really still be thought of as “progressive”, locked as they are in a kind of Faustian pact with the Tories?
It is an important question for Clegg and indeed the broader party and their supporters, and it will only become more important as the electoral cycle plods inexorably towards 2015. Clegg’s intellectual mechanism for dealing with the question and to defend his left flank is to divide “progressives” into two lumpen camps; “old progressives” and “new progressives”. Labour, of course, are cast off as embodying the “old progressive” cause, and the righteous Liberal Democrats hailed as the future of progressive politics in Britain:
The need to make choices is revealing an important divide between old progressives, who emphasise the power and spending of the central state, and new progressives, who focus on the power and freedom of citizens.
There’s some clear sleight of hand and over-simplification being employed here, particularly as Clegg goes on to define exactly what he perceives the differences between old and new progressives to be:
Old progressives are straightforwardly in favour of more state spending and activity.
…
Old and new progressives also take a different approach to tackling poverty and promoting fairness. Old progressives see a fair society as one in which households with income currently less than 60% of the median were to be, in Labour’s telling verb, “lifted” out of poverty.
…
For old progressives, reducing snapshot income inequality is the ultimate goal. For new progressives, reducing the barriers to mobility is.
…
New progressives want to reshape the tax base fundamentally, towards greater taxation of unearned wealth and pollution, rather than of people.
In essence, “old progressivism” just happens to be all the stereotypical centre-left viewpoints that one tends to associate with social democratic parties in the 1980’s. which Clegg projects onto modern Labour. “New progressivism” (in case you didn’t know), just happens to be all the middling, individual-centric rhetoric that Clegg no doubt perceives his party as uniformly believing in and Labour as uniformly opposing. “Political pluralism”? Why that’s conveniently a “new progressive” concept, exemplified, of course, by Clegg’s conservative coalition. Distilling this even further, we might well conclude that the Deputy Prime Minister is trying to cast himself as a Blairite, and position his party as a kind of “New, New Labour”, in league with the old enemy.
This theme is reflected by Clegg’s willingness in his speech to agree with Ed Miliband and Labour on values, but not on policy mechanisms for implementation. On the one hand, he expresses his agreement with Miliband’s recent observations that the United Kingdom is a “fundamentally unequal society” and that “for some people, the gap between the dreams that seem to be on offer and their ability to realize them is wider than it’s ever been before.” He goes on to scoff at Miliband’s attachment to the top 50p income tax rate, conveying all the while that he thinks that Labour’s heart is in the right place but its head is trapped in the past. It is a bold, but ultimately defensive stretch to the left, and a futile one while Clegg still has his stronger leg planted in David Cameron’s hack and slash Conservative camp.
Just where do these Liberal Democrats stand? If the Deputy Prime Minister is to be believed, they are sticking to the middle of the road come what may, and stand to be slowly crushed between the hulking semi-trailers of the major parties during the next five years. It is not good enough for Clegg to stand with the Tories whilst proffering the occasional olive branch to the left. The voters that matter to Clegg and his party are going to want to see something in the Lib Dems that distinguishes them from the Tories as this term rolls on; gentlemanly argreements with Ed Miliband on a few philosophical debating points aren’t going to cut it.
I wish I could warm to Clegg.
I had high hopes for him as a genuine alternative, so nowadays I accept that “take” on him best represented in the “Grauniad” cartoons of Martin Rowson: eg as some thing at least as despicable as Cameron and Osborne.
Both the Libdems and Tories are in a difficult position because they’ve simply got no option but to cut in the current budgetary environment. But I think the fact that most of the pain of these cuts will be felt by the higher income families is a testament to the libdems presence in cabinet. Im thinking in contrast to the Thatcher cuts in the early Seventies.
Paul, he presents quite well, he’s smart, multi-lingual, and he certainly seems capable of offering more to British politics than what he is delivering just at the moment. He was at his best during the election debates when he was sticking it to both Labour and the Tories for being same old, same old, and offering something different, not to mention electoral reform.
Needless to say that schtick doesn’t work so well once you “join ‘em”!
Jamo, not sure about that but I guess we’ll see how time goes on – certainly the recent high voltage education fee protests seem to indicate that quite a large chunk of the trendy, middle-class student base is a bit pissed off. And the trendy middle-class seem to represent a good portion of the Lib Dem support base.
Clegg’s most pressing problem isn’t philosophical. It is political.
The LibDems joined the Coalition on the understanding that the Tories would agree to champion electoral reform.
With the right kind of electoral reform, the LibDems will be at least the powerbrokers in British politics for the foreseeable future.
Contrary to the interests of the LibDems, instead of an actual commitment to electoral reform, all the Tories have delivered is a promise of a referendum on electoral reform. This is a very poor return for the LibDems.
In the meantime, the Tories have poisoned LibDem wells and muddied LibDem streams by cajoling the LibDems into accepting truly draconian budgetary measures. The Tories may lose marginal votes in popular reaction against this scorched-earth policy. However, the LibDems will suffer a major electoral revulsion.
In short, the LibDems have become the patsies of the Tories. Electoral reform is by no means certain but popular revulsion against the LibDems is certain.
Clegg and the babes-in-the-woods LibDems will inherit nothing more than a legacy of ashes from their imprudent association with the Tories.
Clegg’s major problem is economic.
The IMF study on fiscal consolidation shows that austerity only works when Keynes said it would , in good times.
You need interest rates to fall significantly and the currency to fall a lot as well. This occurs when your major trading partners are going well.
( Ask yourself why Ireland only succeeded once when trying it three times).
UK interest rates cannot get much lower. Its currency can depreciate but its major trading partner is the Euro area.
It will be the Liberal Democrats which will get murdered in the polls if Austerity doesn’t produce results.
I should have added the government appears to have contradictory positions.
They claim austerity will lead to greater investment and thus growth ( despite no evidence for this) but Cameron applauded China’s stimulus package because it worked.
If they really did believe Austerity works then why are not all the large cuts in expenditure and rises in taxes in the first year rather the second when world growth should be better than now.
To me, Low Spark reads it much as I have.
If only Clegg had thought first then acted, when called on to decide who the libdems would support, post election.
To me, he should have given Brown Labour the first shot, even if only in terms of the short run, for a stabilisationof thepoliticalprocess in Britain.
Had Labour not reacted more aptly to politics with the check of a coalition partner in place, THEN he could have gone to Cameron, with his loudly vaunted “austerity” which is only code for ripping off the masses to pay for the City of London; its arrogance, greed and incompetence.
Clegg knows what the Tories are up to, that’s what makes him so unforgiveable.
Lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.
There must surely be an opening emerging for a new party to take up the Progressive cause that’s being sold out by the LibDems.
I’d talk about my views on CLegg but why when a UK native does so much better?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/25/charlie-brooker-nick-clegg
There is nothing wrong with austerity but you use it in good times as Keynes said.
The IMF has demolished the claim it promotes growth in bad times.
Austerity gave Ireland a mini depression as it did elsewhere. It increased budget deficits and Government debt!!!
Nick Clegg is either a political dead man walking, or someone who will switch sides to the Conservative party at some point in this parliament. His presence in the coalition is a godsend to Cameron and Osborne for the reasons Charlie Brooker and tssk @ 10 point out. He has to go out and do all the explaining and justifying the government’s policies, while the Tories can sit back and get on with implementing their program. The referendum on electoral reform is now most likely doomed as it will become a de facto referendum on Clegg and the Lib Dems.
Having worked my way through Tony Blair’s autobiography, I can say with confidence that everything that Nick Clegg refers to as “New Progressivism” is in fact the political philosophy of Tony Blair. Since 49.9% of Labour Party decision makers – and over 50% of its MPs – basically agree with the bulk of Blairism, as indicated by the leadership vote between the Milibands, any one who supports “New Progressivism” would be better off to vote Labour than vote Lib Dems, which is basically seen as a vote for the Tories. Labour is in the comfortable position at present of not having to declare itself on either side of the Blair/Brian, Old Labour/New Labour divide that plagued it from about 2003 onwards (not that the issues go away, but it is like the Turnbull/Abbott divide in the Liberal party at present – not something needing a final resolution).
The tertiary fees issue is particularly devastating for the Lib Dems as they made their name in 2005 by opposing the far more modest GBP3000 tuition fee that the Blair government introduced. They can’t credibly have opposed that as inequitable on the one hand, and support the new package of GBP9000 fees on the other. Its a textbook case study in the dangers of political opportunism for short-term electoral advantage on the part of minor parties.
Note: Blair/Brown divide, not Blair/Brian. Sorry Brian.
Paul @8: “To me, he [Clegg] should have given Brown Labour the first shot, even if only in terms of the short run, for a stabilisationof thepoliticalprocess in Britain.”
The diabolical problem for the LibDems though, was that there was no stable option with Labour. From memory I think it was Labor + LibDem + everyone else was a majority of 1 (assuming Sinn Fein stayed away).
d
As I said back at 8, Darryl, Clagg knew the agenda of both parties. The people needed just a breather, to think things over, I feel.
As you say, that was a very hectic time with a decade long adventure for Labour ending darkly in tears.
I think Guy is way too kind to Clegg here. This discussion seems to miss the fact that the Con-Dem coalition are using the debt issue (caused mainly by a combination of financial bailouts and a recession) as a cover for a fundamental minimisation of the UK welfare state.
Such a plan, whether or not it revives the economy (and Ireland seems to be strong evidence it won’t) is actually a class attack of astounding magnitude. I would say it is specifically intended to increase inequality, break public sector unions and increase the rule of management in workplaces. And it is far more ambitious than Thatcher’s approach, which was to attack one section of the union movement at a time while temporarily making concessions to the others (the Ridley Plan). Here the government is attacking multiple sections of the population (including sections of the middle class, although the changing nature of the UK student population makes me reticent to agree with Guy’s blanket characterisation of it as mainly middle class) all at once.
This is only “progressive” in a Hayekian venacular, where “progress” is equated with the accumulation of capital and social improvements are only “progress” if they are part of that dynamic. We should call Clegg’s practice for what it is: reactionary.
Dr Tad,
There would be a significant deficit even if the economy was in rude health and there were no bail-outs.
Gordon Brown was quite irresponsible in having large deficits in the good times just like bush in the US so when ta GFC hits then the budget deficit gets large big time.
The major point is as Ed Balls ( quite possibly the only impressive Labour politician from a dreadful Government) has pointed out you do the heavy lifting of spending cuts when the economy is in full recovery mode otherwise you may well make it worse alah Ireland, Hungary, Estonia, etc
Katz @5 – I think the philosophical angle ties in to a certain extent with the political angle – Clegg needs to reclaim a unique Lib Dem philosophy apart from the Tories in order to revive their political fortunes.
tssk@10 – Fantastic and entirely accurate quote, but then Charlie Brooker quite often says it better.
Low Spark @11 – That’s certainly a key issue. But one gets the impression that the Lib Dems wouldn’t be acting in quite such an austere fashion in relation to the deficit if they weren’t in Coalition with the Tories.
Terry @12 – Agree totally.
Dr_Tad @16 – No, well I actually think that the Lib Dems deserve a crushing at the next available electoral opportunity if they continue on this track; if they do they are assured of getting one. But knowing what the Lib Dems were standing up for during the election campaign, I don’t think that they genuinely believe in what they have been seemingly bound to accept as part of the Coalition.
The austerity measures are of course going to hit everyone, and those on lower incomes hardest of all. But those people didn’t by and large vote for the Lib Dems anyway; its the middle classes who voted for the Lib Dems and get pinged by all this that are going to turn around and bite them.
What they do about in the next couple of years will be crucial to determining whether they head down the path of our local Democrats or not.
If we believe Clegg, then to paraphase a famous line, we’re all progressives now even Dave Cameron.
The problem is that the terms left-wing and progressive have become muddled up. Liberalism can be broadly seen as progressive (socially at least) but is it left-wing? No way.
It can be seen as Clegg’s attempt to further distance the Lib Dems from new liberalism and turn them into the UK’s FDP.
Also for anyone’s interest, the UK Fabians did a pretty good philosophical smackdown of Clegg’s Hugo Young lecture
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/11/does-cleggs-philosophical-pitch-stack.html
The Lib Dems have historically benefited from some tactical voting from people who would otherwise have voted Labour. This is particularly the case south of the “Severn-Wash” line as it is known, where Labour gets most hammered when the electoral tide turns against it (e.g. only 3 non-London southern seats won in the 1983 election, out of about 260). I read, to take one example, Billy Bragg saying that he votes Lib Dems because he lives in Devon, and Devon will never elect a Labour MP, even though his own politics were well to the left of New Labour, let alone Nick Clegg. There is an interesting question of whether Labour may pick up Lib Dems seats in the south, as well as in the north where the Lib Dems will get crushed (Nick Clegg won’t get re-elected in a place like Sheffield).
Guy, I’d just observe that I’m not sure Clegg-ism is as “New Labour” as some people are making out. As I read his speech, he seemed to be entirely giving up on equality altogether in favour of a vacuously defined “social mobility”… I think the Brown-ites, and a lot of UK Labour practice, if not perhaps Blair’s rhetoric, had a much more robust concept of equality, even if it was rather residual compared to post-war social democracy.
If anything, it’s more a return to pre-John Stuart Mill progressivism…
The other comment I’d make is that ‘liberal’ governance, in the sense of accountability, rule of law, etc, etc, really runs against the grain of any form of state practice these days, and that’s largely structural. If you take away the social liberal props, there’s not much left of non-economic liberalism in the practice of any governing party. Clegg might be about to expose that.
Oz, thanks for that link. I think you’re right, there isn’t really a clear distinction between what “progressive” is and what “left-wing” is. Sometimes the terms are tossed about as if equivalent. I am not sure that they are, but neither do we have a widely accepted opinion on how they differ.
Kim, I guess Clegg’s message is not “New Labour”, but I guess that’s what I was getting at when I mentioned “New, New Labour” – its New Labour with another step to the liberal right.
Agree on liberalism – of course its also structurally removed from most big modern political parties as well in terms of the way they are administered and the real voice that grassroots members actually have.
@22 – Guy, another take on Clegg’s speech:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/stuart-white/is-clegg-abandoning-liberalism
Nick Clegg’s political judgement should be questioned.
The Lib/Dems were primed to get their largest vote since Lloyd George when he stated in the debates he wanted the UK to join the euro.
wow just like the Irish, Greeks, Portuguese, Spanish…
Aren’t they just loving it.
didn’t that go down like a lead balloon
Those above who think of themselves as Keynesians need to read more Keynes.
There is no doubt that in an economy where the problem is partly that it’s got a chronic trade surplus (eg China today, the US in the 30s) then a humungous fiscal stimulus is the right response to a major downturn.
But it’s a lot less clearcut when you’re dependent on foreign bondholders for all your investment and those foreign bondholders are starting (rightly or wrongly) to seriously doubt they’ll ever see a return on their investment. Granted, going ahead with your stimulus and then dudding them by full or part default can sometimes be the least painful thing to do, but its pretty damned painful just the same.
From this distance the UK government looks to have overreacted in its austerity (probably because Tory “small government” types see it as an opportunity), but going for stimulus now would risk destroying the City of London as a major finance centre forever.
I seem to remember Churchill being quoted from the time when he was a Liberal as saying something like: “The Liberals favour support net for the poor while not restricting what can be achieved.” This was at a time when Labor saw egalitarianism as being about taking from the rich to give to the poor. Clegg seems to be restating the Churchill (and Aus Liberal) line.
Removing the barriers is desirable and should lead to things like better public education and an increase in the availability of university scholarships. However, it doesn’t address the problems of people at the bottom who lack what it takes to break out of their position no mater how many barriers are removed.