Bryony Victoria's blog: Clegg is achieving great things in government

Bryony Victoria's blog is here. Her Twitter feed is @bryonyvk 

“The Lib Dems are achieving “great things” in government, Nick Clegg has told party members” – hmm, interesting statement. Which good things would these be Nick? The £11bn worth of cuts in June’s emergency budget, the extra £4bn worth of cuts to come from the welfare bill, the “VAT bombshell” (your words Nick, before you got a bit of power and did a U-turn)? What other great things has Nick Clegg achieved in government? Even his turn at Prime Ministers Questions was an unequivocal disaster. Forgive me for thinking it just a smidge hypocritical that a man who has basically completely changed his position on nearly every issue since the election can turn around and say his Party are achieving “great things” in government. I think it’s rather going a tad far to believe he is even ‘in government’ to be honest. For all intents and purposes we have a Conservative government; Clegg and friends are just making up numbers.

I am told that one of these “great things” is the referendum on AV. Forgive me for not throwing a party straight away. If you really want to reform the voting system then there are much better methods to turn to than AV, the least reforming of voting reforms. I also find it rather incredible that this seems to be such a massive issue for many Lib Dems and was during the election, ‘forget the war, forget the economy, the most IMPORTANT issue is getting a referendum on AV, which is likely to be lost anyway…’ Umm, great, yes. Who cares about the number of unemployed as long as we can rank candidates in order of preference…?

The Lib Dems have gained tiny concessions since the election. None of these can be classed as “great things”. If you’re going to try and make us believe that then at least spin it a bit or look down the camera lens and smile nicely, that had loads of people fooled before the election after all.

Clegg also seems to be doing his best to sell the coalition. Apparently it is the “right thing for now”. Funny, I was under the impression that it was the “only” thing for now because despite having nearly total support from the national press the Conservatives still couldn’t command a majority and could either form a highly unstable and likely to have collapsed by now minority government or go into a coalition with the Lib Dems. It was obvious from even before the event that Nick Clegg had no intention of taking his Party into a coalition with Labour and other minor parties, despite all their arguments that they had to go into a coalition with those big bad Tories because Labour were mean and didn’t want to make a deal, so please don’t stop voting for us please, we had no choice… etc etc.

Nick Clegg can smile and repeat the “great things” line all he wants but if there is any truth to be found in the latest polls then the electorate are not buying it. The latest UKPR polling average has the Lib Dems on just 14%. Unless things improve dramatically and Nick Clegg and his Party actually start achieving great things and perhaps arguing for the things they stood for just a few months ago then the Lib Dems could recover and make a difference. Unfortunately they seem quite content at the moment to be the Tories whipping boys, only without the bond. The point that Nick Clegg seems to avoid is that he had a choice back in May and he still has a choice now. He could stand up to the Tories now and he could have demanded more for the Lib Dems in May, after all the Tories needed him to make up the numbers, but he doesn’t demand more and he doesn’t oppose the things he opposed just a few months ago. He likes where he is and clearly doesn’t want to fall out with his new chums Dave and Gideon. Not really the “new politics” he promised. Lying, hypocrisy and corruption was always around.http://bryonyvictoria.wordpress.com/