From 2006 to 2010, I was a councillor for Lee Green ward in the London Borough of Lewisham. During that time, I blogged regularly and in 2009 I won the Tim Garden Award for the Best Blog by a Liberal Democrat Holding Public Office. My blog posts from my term of office are archived here in case they prove of use to former constituents, or to those who share my annoyance with faulty street furniture
Well, I hate to say I told you so, but that Nick Clegg fella has turned out to be pretty good, hasn’t he? So much so, that Britain’s right wing press have had a bit of a field day today. I thought I’d have my own go with the headline above – it’s about as believable as some of the ones in this morning’s papers.
In fact, you can create your own headline online here – go on, give it a go. My personal favourite so far? ”Could Nick Clegg destroy Cliff Richard?”. In fact, that’s probably tomorrow’s Daily Mail headline – highlighting Nick’s alleged love of Sacha Distel and Edith Piaf in preference to home-grown stars.
I just pose one question – if newspaper barons like Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay Brothers are so scared of this guy, who leads a third party that hasn’t been in government for 65 years, then why is that? Could it be that they fear Nick’s about to upset the cosy consensus they enjoy with the two old parties?
Of course, you’d expect me to stick up for Nick, but you mightn’t expect Iain Dale, who ran for the Tories at the last General Election, to point out that this press coverage is manifestly unfair, and probably counter-productive. Of course, we’ve seen this before with Neil Kinnock, and over in the US, there were similarly far-fetched attacks on John Kerry and Barack Obama.
I don’t know whether the Lib Dem surge in the polls will last – it could disappear as quickly as it arrived – but I do know that Britain needs change, and this election offers us a good chance. But only if people ignore these lunatic tales in the press, and stick with their instincts.
Ha ha, that’s funny! Yes, the accusations against Clegg have got quite ridiculous.
I’m not surprised that Iain Dale stood up for you, though. He’s usually pretty fair on opponents and principles. In fact, most of the main Tory bloggers are. It’s just a shame that the party as a whole lowers itself to scare tactics and smear campaigns.
I’m not always one of your supporters, but I wanted to let you know that the LibDems have done a *lot* to win my trust by refusing to lower themselves to the level of mud-slinging carried out by the other 2 major parties. I think the negativity shown by the other parties, and the media that supports them, is beginning to backfire, and that this will actually work in your favour.