Does this make Clegg look a bit precious?
November 19th, 2007
Was the front-runner right to make a formal complaint?
In the introduction to the thread on Thursday’s Huhne-Clegg Question Time debate I noted that “there’s been a lot of edge between the two men during the campaign and there might just be fireworks.”
Well it did not quite happen on that occasion but last night the contest, which has struggled to command much media attention, was topping the BBC bulletins after Nick Clegg made a formal complaint over the Huhne campaign briefing document, revealed on the Politics Show, under the heading “Calamity Clegg”.
With the ballot forms going out this week the Clegg campaign obviously calculated that raising the issue like this was a way of capturing the moral high ground in what has become an extraordinarily bitter contest. The problem is that it continues to link the word “calamity” with his name and the Huhne charges about Clegg’s “policy flip-flopping” are given wider currency.
Whoever becomes leader is going to face much worse things than this and, as one or two people were saying on yesterday’s thread, the move makes Clegg look a bit precious.
As most site visitors will know, I am a Lib Dem, and have strong views about this contest - so my observations on the betting might be suspect. In fact I’ve limited the amount I have at risk to just £100 because past experience has been that my judgement gets affected if I feel passionately about an outcome.
What I have found quite nasty is the amount of personal abuse I have been getting for daring to suggest that Nick Clegg’s alleged “superior presentational skills” are not apparent to me. I rate him as no more than average in this respect. This has led to emails and comments on the thread that I should resign from the party if the younger man, as I think he will, ends up as winner. There’s a sense of “entitlement” about Clegg’s approach to this election which makes him and those around him very unappealing.
On the second Wednesday in January, when the new leader makes his PMQ debut, there’ll be crescendo of noise and abuse from the Tory and Labour gangway hecklers as he gets to his feet. Based on yesterday’s developments I think that Huhne will be more robust and better equipped to deal with it.
The betting has hardly moved with Clegg still the 0.36/1 favourite. Trading has been very light with barely £3,000 being matched on Betfair yesterday.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
I predict
Huhne 22
Clegg 19
Spoilt ballot papers 40,959
Totally agree with you Mike. This is on top of Huhne “sincerely appologising” and “disassociating” himself from the remarks. What could Clegg actually hope to accomplish by complaining?
I think the better strategy would have been to say “That was a bit of a goof, vote me for me I won’t make that kind of mistake against PR men like Cameron & Brown”. I think it rather makes both look silly - One made a goof and one made a serious complaint and if the public actually notices (always an if) it won’t do the Lib Dems any good in the polls.
Actually Mike, I think your personal views on this contest are overshadowing this particular incident. I think Huhne is the better candidate and the nicer guy, but this incident looks bad for him. Politicians can’t cleanse themselves of guilt by simply “dissassociating” themselves from what their teams have done - it just seems like he’s getting other people to do his dirty work for him and then trying to avoid the blame.
This sort of smear is particularly damaging from a Lib Dem because people are used to it from the Conservatives and Labour, but the third party are supposed to be the “nice guy” alternative, so this jars.
OT: Republican friends of mine are starting to warm to Mike Huckabee. He’s a nice guy, he’s honest and straight forward, and he’s a consistent conservative on all the issues that matter to most Republicans at the moment. Only the fiscal conservatives have an issue with him, but they’re a dwindling minority of the primary voting electorate - especially as most non-religious Conservatives have already gone over to the Democrats. He’s also incredibly good at dismissing criticism: check out this clip.
This clip even!
Mike, nobody should be telling you whom to support or to leave the party if your guy loses! It’s hardly like the LibDems can afford to tell all the Huhneites to shove off! You’ll be most welcome in the libertarian Tories you know.
That said, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t see Huhne’s overbearing, overtalking performance on the Politics Show as the utter disaster it was - most LibDem Voice commenters did, including declared Huhneites.
The big loser in all this is surely the LibDems. It looks juvenile. Be interested to hear what other LDs make of it, Tressage, tpfkar, and Mark Senior especially.
1) Yes it does
2) whether he was right to complain depends entirely on what sanctions can be taken. Because Huhne’s current attitude isn’t doing the Lib Dems any favours. Either he’s going to win and be left with a load of colleagues who won’t work with him, or lose but have left behind a whole load of ammunition for opponents.
I know you like to argue, Mike, the line that “if one can’t handle a intra-party contest then one has no chance in an extra-party one”, but there are limits. If you subscribe to the “one should not publicly attack a colleague” school, then it is very difficult to respond when an opponent doesn’t.
I don’t think getting down into the mud is what the libdems need.
Northern Rock to cost British People £45 Billion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494886&in_page_id=1770
Labour is very generous with the people’s money.
Northern Rock to cost British People £45 Billion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494886&in_page_id=1770
Labour is very generous with the people’s money.
I don’t really understand this:
“Mr Darling will have to convince Brussels that the bail out cash is not state aid but is part of a ‘restructuring’ programme to help the Rock’s 800,000 mortgage holders”.
Surely mortgage holders are the one set of people who don’t need helping? They can’t be forced to pay their money back before time, can they? Or is it just that they will be put in a position where they have absolutely no leeway on their contractually required payments, and there will consequently be a dramatic rise in house repossessions?
I think you are, unusually, letting your personal views on the merits of the respective candidates affect your article Mike.
There is no question that this incident reflects poorly on Huhne’s judgement and instincts far more than Clegg’s and will damage his campaign. The only question is whether he deals with it quickly and effectively to limit the damage.
9 correct. the new owners will jack up mortgage rates for existing NRock customers as they need to help pay the funding costs of the deal.
Good Morning All.
I found it rather amusing watching the POlitics show. First, Huhne says he knows nothing about the “Calamity Clegg” statement, then he goes on to attack Clegg on exactly the terms set out in the statement! Clegg was very rattled and rather surprised, with Jon Sopel looking on, amused.
Socrates @ 3 re Huckabee — agreed: he is worth keeping an eye on, and looks the most likely candidate to attract the religious right.
There was a recent reminder that four years ago, John Kerry was polling around the five per cent mark. There is much still to play for.
Brown is one of the best PMs we have ever had at the skilled art of spending other people’s money. However he could probably benefit from employing my wife as a consultant.
Of course the leadership contest was going to get a bit ugly at some point. The public and the Lib Dem voters in particular need to see whether the candidates can stand up for themselves with confidence and assurance in the face of attacks on their credibility. Like you said, the House of Commons is a hell of a lot worse than this. Clegg should fight fire with fire instead of running to the Whip’s office in tears.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
10 Mike has been very open about his views and says “have strong views about this contest - so my observations on the betting might be suspect.”
As an outsider I haven’t been too impressed by Clegg, he comes across as average not outstanding. His response to the “Calamity Clegg” stuff - “please sir that nasty Mr Huhne is cheating” - isn’t that one expects of someone who wants to lead a party that has lost well over a third of its support. The Conservatives and Labour will misquote him, will mislead on his policies, will exploit lack of clarity and there isn’t a referee he can go to then. If he can’t get past the Huhne camps misinformation (if thats what it is) how will he survive the dirty business of elections?
Huhne has shown more metal but at a huge cost - he’s turned this into a left/right battle which exposes the divisions between the Liberal and SDP heritages and his personalisation of the campaign will make it difficult to lead the parliamentary party. There will be personal animosity and a sizeable number of discontents if he wins, and probably a smaller but equally unhappy faction if he loses, and a divided party isn’t what the Lib Dems need in their position.
I agree with this. I didn’t watch the stuff yesterday, but the way it has been reported make Clegg appear to be the type that goes running to teacher when things don’t go his way.
Last time around the LD establishment backed Ming and made a big mistake. This time they are backing Clegg. IMHO he lacks life experience and it is the wrong time to be Leader. It would be better for him if Huhne won.
The odd thing is that Clegg has secured support from the left leaning Simon Hughes, Steve Webb and Linda Jack etc. In blog land the Cleggies are writing inflamed words over the equivalent of how many insults can be printed on the top of a pin. “Huhne cannot control a press heading so is unfit to run the party”. A rather desperate conclusion. Possibly because there is so little difference between the candidates.
It does look like Clegg is going to get it, but he will face councillor losses in May followed by MP losses in 09/10. The LD party needs victories for momementum. The next Leader will oversee decline.
Huhne’s the flip-flopper! He should have had he courage of his convictions and when confronted on the Politics show said, ‘Yes, he is a potential calamity for the party. Here’s why….’
Instead he uses the attack lines then apologises for the attack when told he is being nasty. How very Lib Demish.
I am very disappointed that you have received unfair personal abuse about your support of Chris Huhne. Right at the start of the campaign you said you wanted to stop Clegg. The deliberate implication behind your recent comment that a wealthy backer of Clegg might be keeping his price down on Betfair (no names of course) and the way you have chosen to highlight Huhne’s allegations rather than his unpleasant and increasingly desparate attempts by Huhne to undermine his opponent is clearly part of your ‘Stop Clegg’ drive. Personally, it should not matter to people and it should not become a reason for personal abuse if either, you have backed Huhne and now want to trade off at a profit by trying to ramp his chances from a betting perspective or whether as a Liberal Democrat, you simply want Huhne to win. You set out your stall right from the beginning of this campaign and you deserve credit for being open about your objectives.
For what it’s worth, my view is quite simple. The Liberal Democrats have nothing if not for their perceived sense of fair play and decency and that Nick Clegg is fundamentally a far more fair minded and decent man than Chris Huhne and that this latest incident demonstrates this.
There is a good reason why the contest is not making headlines.
NO-ONE CARES. I am a mild political anorak (I’m on this site…) and I don’t particularly give a monkey’s. Amongst the general public, the apathy is near universal.
While I think that in some past threads on the Lib Dem leadership Mike has had too high an expectation of what could realistically be achieved (branding the last three leaders failures would be the best example), in this case I believe his judgement is on the money. Clegg has revealed a weakness in his judgement by complaining - or perhaps Huhne has revealed that weakness in Clegg.
The problem for the Lib Dems is that once an election gets this bitter, divisions caused can run on for well after the election period. That is particularly likely if Huhne ends up winning as Clegg is likely to believe he has had the leadership unfairly snatched away from him. A party with a ‘king over the water’ is unlikely to be overly successful.
So yesterday’s events have been a bit of a lose-lose situation for their party: if Huhne wins, divisions will be harder to erase; if Clegg wins, the Lib Dems face the prospect of a leader who is flaky under fire. That said, as Socrates rightly points out at [3], one of the Lib Dems’ biggest assets is their ‘nice guy’ image. If Huhne is intent on gong down the negative campaigning route so openly, that could be a problem for their future prospects. After all, what can the Lib Dems say about the Tories or Labour that they will not be saying about each other (apart from ‘we opposed the War (seven years ago)’?
I wonder whether the extra steel that Huhne has shown in this incident is worth the potential cost. It wouldn’t have been had Clegg handled himself well - but he didn’t. I’m reminded of the US presidential debate in 2000 where Al Gore walked across to Bush’s side of the platform in a clear attempt to intimidate him. Bush simply gave him a look as if to say ‘what are you doing here?’ and carried on, leaving Gore to retreat back. For me, that was a defining moment in the campaign. Had Clegg done a Bush, the election would now be his to lose (though it has to be said that Gore wasn’t trying to constantly talk over the top of his opponent either).
Mike- it is good to acknowledge that partisanship can sometimes color our objectivity. At least it is clear where you stand on the leadership issue, I suspected before, but now know that you are 110% a Huhne man. It is a bit sad that you have been abused because of this.
Huhne has impressed me much more than I thought. The experience of running against Ming has clearly helped him. However, the LD’s would miss a trick to not select Clegg. The Tories (Major, Hague, IDS and Howard); Labour with Foot, and now Brown, and the LD’s with Ming have found to their cost the dangers of not picking the right man.
Whoever wins needs to use Cable as virtually a co leader because the man is rapidly morphing into the most impressive politician in the UK today. What a talented, balanced, intelligent, honest, decent, well mannered, person Cable is.
I want to start a pbCOM CABLE FAN CLUB.
Northern Rock shares down another 11% or so to below £1.20p. This does appear to becoming very, very messy. Where are we now with King’s “moral hazard”? If as is reported, NR is borrowing from the Treasury at bank rate plus a rolled-up (unsecured) 1.25% premium, we may well be in unchartered waters.
The only policy difference I’ve noticed between the LD ‘tweedles’ is that Huhne wants to spend no more money on Trident (which seems very sensible). There may be other policy differences, but if I (as an anorak) haven’t spotted them….There may be some discernible to LD members, but none visible to LD voters.
Who comes over better? Too close to call.
Our host can’t see why Huhne is 3/1 and Clegg 1/3. Seems a very fair point.
22 David- I remember that debate well (Gore vs Bush), and thought to myself that in that moment Gore lost it. It wasn’t the intimidation thing, it was the fact that he looked arkward, and a bit wierd wandering around whilst Bush looked presidential just standing behind his lectern. IDS had a similar fate with his wanderings around the stage waving his arms around strangely.
In this day the public do not do strange and wierd or odd. Ming wasn’t too old, he just presented as an old duffer from another era.
Brown presents as a bit strange, a bit freaky, and rather odd in an unlikeable way. That will be his downfall
23 +24 agree about Cable, he has been the most impressive voice on the NRock issue. He is right that it should be nationalised to protect the huge amounts of money lent to it.
It’s win/win for the Tories. Either Huhne wins and the LDs are led by a Euro-federalist nutcase with limited appeal beyond the Guardian/Independent reading classes and Clegg is left in no man’s land (who knows, he may even defect?), or Clegg wins and the LDs are saddled with a lightweight non-entity, also a Euro-federalist nutcase, who might look like another Cameron but as his sixth-form debater performance on Question Time and his “running off to teacher” effort yesterday confirm, is totally lacking in any gravitas or mettle. Either way, I predict a large number of Tory gains from the LDs. Big question for me is how much will Labour also benefit, and will this cost the Tories a number of gains they need to make from Labour?
Of course, who is to say that Clegg or Huhne would last till May 2010 in the Party of Backstabbers?
I still reckon Charlie K will be leading ‘em at the next GE.
The NR saga has clearly undermined Brown’s reputation for “prudence”
27
Agree Cable talked sense on R4 this morning, no one else did.
Loved the representative of the Norther Rock shareholders, ‘The government has a duty of care to small shareholders’ really, what next, ‘The government has a duty of care to………….’ fill in as required.
Does this item in the Guardian mean, climate change is good for us?
http://tinyurl.com/3ydocg
OT More embarrassment for Labour in Scotland:
“Labour aide quits after C-word rant”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2896629.ece
When it comes to what Mike describes as a ’sense of entitlement’, this is an unattractive trait shared by George W Bush and David Cameron (not to mention some of the people around Brown, such as the two Eds).
Re. 5, he was excessively long-winded in the QT debate (I seem to be one of the few people - if not the only person - to think that Clegg won it).
Re. 3, I agree re. Huckabee, particularly when, as he says himself, he’s a conservative who’s not angry at anyone. There’s none of the bitterness or sanctimony common among the religious right or social conservatives. But if he doesn’t get the funds or the people there’s a risk that all he’ll do is eat into Romney’s support, and therein benefit Giuliani rather than win it himself. (though, in that event, Giuliani may well offer him a place on the ticket).
Re. 23, yes, Cable (in his other capacity as economics spokesman) is more impressive than either Darling or Osborne.
30 - Ah yes, we’re all lovely little capitalists - until it goes wrong, then we want Tough State Action to help us out!!!
Thing is, with NR, the govt was between a rock (no pun intended!) and a hard place. Let NR go under, then see the run on NR spread to Alliance & Leicester, Bradford and Bingley, etc etc until we have a HUGE crisis on our hands. The govt *had* to step in to stop the contagion. There are no easy answers here. Any govt of ANY political persuasion would have had to do this, IMO.
33
Surely if you are a socialist that’s exactly what you want, then you can turn around and say’ There you are, told you capitalism is arse didn’t I’
This, (along with the disasterous policy of turning Building Societies into Banks ) is the result of Thatcher’s popular capitalism. i.e. it brought into the market people who had no idea what they were bloody well doing. The think that buying and owning shares is a risk free option. Well they should be shown it bloody well ‘aint.
Mike your threads are on the edge of becoming so anti-Clegg as to stop many of us visiting the site and giving a huge amoutn of amunition to the other parties should Nick win.
Yes you have your own views on the leadership but to find nothing wrong with Huhne or his campign and to continue to snipe at Nick is churlish in the extreme.
I say again after all these threads will you be leaving the party if Nick wins…I think your position is untenable if you don’t.
“The Liberal Democrats. More flip-flops than a summer beach….”
They can use that.
Maybe as a Lib Dem member I should be put off by Huhne after yesterday’s dismal affair. Yet I dislike even more the triumphalist and hectoring tone of Clegg’s more fanatical supporters in the blogosphere and elsewhere. Their man has played safe all campaign and when at last they perceive Huhne has slipped up all hell seems to break loose.
As a member I suggest the party puts this incident quickly behind them and both contenders get back to explaining positive reasons why they should be supported. Be your own man I would say.
“..what has become an extraordinarily bitter contest.”
“What I have found quite nasty is the amount of personal abuse I have been getting”
Sorry to hear that Mike. What I find so shocking about this leadership contest is just how vicious it’s become. It’s unbelievable.
Contrast it, if you will, with the good-natured Tory leadership contest, where both candidates developed a mutual respect and admiration for one another as the contest progressed. There was not an ounce of personal bitterness at its conclusion. In fact, David Davis (who did have a bit of a reputation as a backstabber at the time) did the Conservative Party a great service by his moderate campaigning and gentlemanly conduct. The position of the Conservative Party at the time was no less desperate than that of the Liberal Democrats now - who have shown their true colours.
I simply couldn’t believe the way Chris and Nick publicly argued on live television. They are doing all the work of their opponents for them.
How these two can ever work with each other again, I don’t know.
35 Big Mak = the unacceptable face of lib demmery.
Re 35 I thought we were a libertarian party. I am a eurosceptic, a rarity in our party, but I am closer in most other ways to the Lib Dems than either Tories or Labour. Should I resign my membership too?
35- Nobody forces you to read Mike’s analysis, you know…
I am sure that until yesterday most people will have never heard of Clegg or Hunhne — and they won’t have bene impressed with what they saw: two boys squabbling in a playground.
I bet Laws is wishing he stood now.
33 - there was an easy answer, Flump - to simply raise the guarantee for ALL deposits in the UK, not NR specific, to 100k as it is in the US. Not give unlimited guarantee, and unlimited borrowing facilities.
If savers knew they were auto-protected up to 100k, no run on the bank, and no special deals for bad loan makers with the taxpyer footing the bill.
Labour has spent more money on NR than the entire primary school budget for one year, according to Vince Cable!
I will reserve my judgement until after the hustings here in Worthing tonight . Will report back hopefully with who will be getting my vote .
On topic I think on balance the passion generated in the contest to be positive and shows both contestants to be hungry for the job . I think both have the capability of being good leaders who can take the party forward in the 2 years or so before the next election .
I note HF and his usual LibDem facing losses posts - have you managed to actually work out which seats are up next May and Bob Sykes Clegg may defect if he loses - clearly been drinking Rik W’s home brew ” 3 LibDem MP’s are going to defect ” brand .
It is noteworthy that in all the hubris over Brown’s big fall in personal ratings in the Yougov poll , no Conservative mentioned that Cameron’s personal ratings had fallen too . The truth is not that the Conservatives ( the party of recessions and house price collapses ) are coasting to victory at the next GE but that the vast majority of voters outside the parties’ core vote are not enthralled by any of the parties and they will give the new LibDem leader whover it is a chance to win them over . Time will tell if I am right or not .
20. ‘The Liberal Democrats have nothing if not for their perceived sense of fair play and decency’
Hard to square that with the unpleasant post at 35. and the other attacks on Mike for daring to express an opinion contrary to that of the Lib Dem establishment.
43 - Except these are LOANS - which we expect to get back (eventually).
35:Expulsions now for backing another candidate! The Respect debacle was more dignified than this leadership battle.
As someone who wants Cameron to win, I confess I was slightly worried by Clegg. Now I am not. He is a bland, pleasant, affable, spiritless, silly, boyish, floppy-public-school-haircut of a man. He’s not even a machine politician - that would be an insult to machines.
N, Clegg is, instead, the eager young puppy that leaps up highest in the pet shop window, that you consequently buy for your daughter on a whim - only to regret it three weeks after Boxing Day when he’s peeing all over the sofa and you have to go and dump him on the motorway.
He will not make the slightest difference to Lib Dem fortunes, other than to reinforce their decline. Clegg will be laughed out of court.
Huhne by the other hand, has a hint of menace and steel to him, a kind of semi-principled deviousness.
I think the Lib Dems are entering very dark days indeed. The Libs are gonna need someone with guts and even a little brutality to keep them in the picture.
I honestly think they should go for Huhne. But I think they will plump for Clegg and it will be a major error. Hah.
43
Auto-protected !ooooh classic Tory waffle, what ever happened to the free market? That’s not the sort of thing I used to hear down at the, ‘Silver Cross’
Why doesn’t the Tory Party just say, ‘Tough! buyer beware’ as a taxpayer I strongly resent to my money being used to bail out people who bought shares in the hope of making a profit, and whinge and moan when they get into trouble.
If Vince Cable was impressive, George Osborne was dire, said nothing of any substance, fell back on the usual crap, ‘We’d done the same as the government, only we’d have done it better’
33 - redflump - “until we have a HUGE crisis on our hands.” If 40,000,000,000 quid is a small crisis, how much would a HUGE crisis cost the taxpayer? Forty BILLION is MORE than we spend on Defence for the year.
Well, I never believed that the Lib Dems could lose more than half their seats at the next election… until now. I’m warming to John O’Farrell’s quip that the English are either naturally Conservative or else totally apolitical.
[33][34] The lass is quite right, and of course no Tory here has to my recollection (don’t read every post) suggested that the Government should have stood back and done nothing. There is of course a limit to how much Branson or whoever can push NR’s interest rates up above market, people can switch mortgageors after all. And buying shares in the hope the price goes up (rather than for the dividend income) isn’t investment, it’s speculation. Those who aren’t willing to bet on horses, dogs or politicians shouldn’t do it - they should go for fixed interest securities.
But as a society we are addicted to speculation, cashing in on house price rises etc.
48 - “only to regret it three weeks after Boxing Day when he’s peeing all over the sofa and you have to go and dump him on the motorway.” Gasp! I, for one, am shocked!
50 - Yes £40 billion is a huge amount of money, but just imagine what we would have had to spend if the run on NR spead as per above? We would have had to go to the IMF!!! Then the govt opponents would scream “Why didn’t you step in earlier?”
Northern Rock is Labour’s Black Wednesday. The difference is that it is slow burning. But the fuse has been lit.
I hope Cameron brings it up at PMQs. The press pays attention to Cam’s questions in the way it does not to Cable’s very good ones.
We need to rattle Brown over why he spent more on this bank than schools and soldiers. When the public realises what Labour have done, the anger will be immense.
35 - “I say again after all these threads will you be leaving the party if Nick wins…I think your position is untenable if you don’t.”
Err, why? I wanted Dave to win against Davis, but I wouldn’t have taken my bat and ball home home had the result been different.
BlueMotionBrownBounce @ 14: You said “In fact £45Bn is a small price to pay for securing British jobs for British people.”
I hope this is tongue in cheek… but if not, are you freaking serious?? NR has 6,000 employees, so a 45 billion bailout works out at GBP7.5 million per job. Golly.
53. NR has some assets (the mortgage book) - which is unlikely to be completely worthless. However govt may have to forego some of the interest on the money it is lending NR - that will take the edge off Browns “black hole” jibes…
49 deposit protection is what was being talked about but you’re conflating that with shareholder protection. This is because you are so pants-wettingly excited at posting drivel about NR you’ve forgotten to engage your (usually) incisive brain.
It’s quite simple - deposit protection provides small investors with the protection they need to prevent a run on a bank. Shareholders are at the mercy of the market place.
The stupidity of Darling’s actions is magnified by the dsastrous structure imposed by Gordon on managing banking stability. If that role had been left to the BoE then the confusion and delay in acting would not have happened.
53- NR is approaching the 100 p floor. (102.9 i.e. -22% at 9:25 am)
53 - Would Dave have gambled the whole of the banking system on letting NR go to the wall, watching the run spread to other building societies, then to the major highstreet banks? Would he *really* have done this? Its all very well for DC to ask questions, but to say “oh, how dare you do this” begs the question, “Well smartarse, what would *you* have done, eh?”
53
First of all it isn’t Labour’s Black Wednesday that’s tosh. And secondly the Tories have to convince people they would have done it differently So far they haven’t said anything worth saying.
They certainly haven’t said what they should have said, ‘Sorry thats the free market’ can’t interfere, you made cock up, you’ve got to take the consequences’
Isn’t that what a libertarian Tory would say test?
59- Sure. But to be fair, nobody knows how Labour would have handled Black Wednesday either.
In this kind of situation only the government is blamed.
When interest rates more than double in one day, then its Labour’s Black Wednesday!
51. NR should have been nationalised, the management dismissed, and the shareholders wiped out as soon as the crisis broke. It should then have been subject to six months restructuring, with the remnants sold back to the private sector at the end of the process. Retail depositors should have been protected, but not other creditors.
All the above is standard international ‘best practice’ in cases of bank collapse of this sort, and balances the need to contain systemic risk with the need to exact a penalty on foolish risk takers (shareholders and management).
But rather than take this well trodden route, the government instead tried to bodge a solution, setting up an unprecedented guarantee structure which not only covered retail deposits but also most wholesale deposits and all but a small minority of other creditors.
The motivation behind this appears to have been largely political - protecting the big NR workforce in the NE ahead of a planned snap election. After the election was called off the government continued to bodge things, offering yet further public guarantees/write offs to try to get a trade sale rather than bite the bullet and organise a break up. Seeing this, the various interested parties have put in very low bids, demanding extended periods of public sector financial backing.
The ultimate cost of this narrow, politicised approach for the Treasury could be very high. The costs of the jobs ’saved’ could be extremely high.
The abusive posters that Mike refers to are being silly - Mike is perfectly entitled to express his views on his own blog and decide for himself what party he wants to belong to (hey, it’s mysterious that a big fan of Gordon’s like Mike hasn’t joined Labour already
).
I think the row was mildly damaging to both candidates, IMO rather more to Huhne. But people such as Test and me commenting from other parties are probably not typical - the electorate will have forgotten it next week if they noticed it at all.
Incidentally, I complimented a senior LD MP last week on the constructive way their leadership campaign was progressing. He laughed heartily and said, “You wait!”
63. Nu Labs links to the Rock and its Junta should also not be overlooked.
I agree that Clegg has been presented with an open goal and has managed to put the ball into row Z with his ‘complaint’.
Perhaps if either of them had studied US politics rather than EU then they would know how to attack one’s opponent gracefully in a primary - which is what in effect the leadership election is - and rebut attacks efficiently.
The fact that both have failed to get the basics right is damaging. I disagree with Mike - I’ve seen nothing in the Huhne campaign that makes me think he would be a capable leader. But I do agree with him that the Clegg campaign has so far failed to show any evidence that he is the ‘great communicator’.
Dark days indeed…
Chris - Surely the floor is at 0p.
Surely Cable is right - the BoE should take over the assets (mortgages) of NR and let them gradually run off. I would expect that there will be big as yet unseen problems with them, but the alternatives will cost the BoE billions NOW and they will lay the blame on the Government - They are supposed to be independent after all. Sorry Mervyn - no Knighthood or Lordship for you!
44 Mark Senior in denial as usual on the state of Lib Dem prospects. How many councillor gains did you predict for May 2007? -300?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7101132.stm
“Northern Rock has said the proposals received so far from potential investors were “materially below” the stricken bank’s current share price.”
Not for long. A strange formulation, linking it to the share price rather than the inherent value of the business. It’s almost as if they want the share price to fall to a point where the sale can then go ahead - and get everybody (except the current shareholders) out of a bind…
67- I was mentioning the 100 p floor as a technical term: some options and automated transactions must be gathered around the symbolical 100 p mark (there certainly were previous stabilizations around 200 and 150). If it goes below that, that should mean that some market big players are giving up.
Actually if you look at the graph since this moring, the sharp plunge stopped around 103 and has not varied very much since.
65: Did NR board members make a donation or a loan to the Labour Party?
8
‘Northern Rock to cost British People £45 Billion.’
And only a few weeks ago we were hearing claims from Labour that the Tory IHT proposals were £1 billion underfunded,however,in the case of a bank going under in a Labour heartland then £45 billion can be found in a flash!
71 - Let’s adjust our tin foil hats now.
73 Ah, so that is the problem. Perhaps if you take it off…..
72 - The money has been loaned to the bank from the BoE. This is nothing like Black Wednesday, so stop ramping!
Nick - Agree with most of your post [64] Mike - ignore people claiming to be Lib Dems attacking you. You sign your name to the articles and are entitled to your opinions, and I for one take note of your views in making up my mind.. I still have not finally made my mind up - I heard someone supporting Clegg last night saying that Clegg’s style, by which I think they meant his hesitant and uncertain presentation, made him attractive because he was more normal!
Liked Nicks suggestion that you should jump onto Gordon’s band wagon - There certainly is plenty of room as the rats leave it! That national treasure, Bob Marshall Andrews on Any Questions last Friday was wonderful!
OT. My friend Lord Bach has been brought back into the Government as a Whip/spokesman in the Lords - After the fiasco with farm payments is this Gordon showing that he can even outdo JC’s trick of bringing Lazarus back.
In the good old days Northern Rock would have been sorted out quietly and even efficiently behind closed doors. In fact, this was I understand considered on this occasion with LloydsTSB being approached. But any deal fell possibly on “spurious” legal grounds but may be a victim of “modernisation”.
35. If you know anything about our party you would know that it does not belong to any one person. It would still be Mike’s party if Clegg became leader just as it would remain mine, what it is is far more than who leads it.
I suspect that Mike Smithson has been a member of the party far longer than you have, what right do you have to say that his membership of his own party is ‘untenable’?
NR The Telegraph has a very appropriate cartoon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2007/11/19/ixd19.gif
Big Mak is a mate of mine, but I think it is a bit rich to tell Mike he ought to leave the party if he doesn’t support the next leader. By this logic Big Mak should have left the party eighteen months ago.
On the other hand, Mike is on shaky ground when he says that Clegg’s complaint makes him look “precious”, and then proceeds to complain about comments on the threads and emails. Who is calling who precious here, Mike?
75- You are right. It is not Black Wednesday YET.
It can still turnout right.
But cleaning up a bank book can be very costly. it cost French taxpayers around £15 billion to rescue the Credit lyonnais at the beginning of the 1990ies. (the obvious difference is that it was a nationalized bank)
80: Mike’s not standing for the Leadership just running a web site
73: As Northern Rock gave half a million to the IPPR, I was wondering if they had also donated directly too.
75 - old saying (adjusted for inflation…) - when you owe the bank £1000, that’s your problem. When you owe the bank £20bn, that’s the bank’s problem.
Right now, the BoE is looking to be signifcantly exposed to NR (or successor entities) for at least the next 5 years. This is now more of a capital investment than a commercial loan, really. I think anyone being realistic at this point has got to be anticipating BoE (ie Govt) losses of some quantum on this.
55 “NR has 6,000 employees, so a 45 billion bailout works out at GBP7.5 million per job.”
Well, as long as it is securing British jobs for British workers…. I just hope NR don’t employ any illegal immigrants - can you imagine that outrage at the Mail?!?
Test (4) asked me directly what I and others made of the current situation in the Lib Dem leadership campaign. Mark Senior has already given his reply. Now mine.
I was decidedly unimpressed by Sunday’s events, which seemed totally out of keeping with what had gone before.
I went to one of the hustings and - like most people there - was delighted that we had two excellent candidates to chose from. The event was good humoured throughout. There was a small measure of discussion of policy differences - how could there be enormous differences, when policy among Liberal Democrats is determined by the Conference? - but no personal attacks.
Both candidates spent time criticising Brown’s Labour and Cameron’s Conservatives, and an excellent job they made of it too. If Test had been there, I am sure that she would have joined the Lib Dems on the spot….
So what has gone wrong? I think the answer is negative campaigning, which has come in from the USA, and is used in this country especially by the Tories. If this is undesirable among parties, it is even more so within them. It polarises people who ought to be working together.
The Tories, to their credit, did not go in for this sort of campaign this time, as far as one could see. But then, they didn’t need to, since they had Frank Luntz to fix the required result for them.
Both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne are outstandingly good politicians, communicators and Liberal Democrats (with the exception of yesterday, which I would rather like to see erased from the pages of history).
I hope very much that, from now on, they will attack only our opponents, and that all Liberal Democrats will speak only of our positive points.
Isn’t running for leadership, of any party, like a Rugby match? You do everything you can to grind your opponent into the ground, possibly even stretched the rules when you think the ref is not watching. Many a time I have watched two players, usually on opposite sides, knock chunks out of each other for 80 minutes and 30 minutes later have a beer with their new best mate.
Don’t criticise either Nick or Chris for giving it everything whilst the competition is on.
86. Now the Conservative have ruined the Lib Dem election - is there anything they aren’t responsible for ? That cyclone in Bangladesh - was that due to nasty Tory toffs ??
lol
86: Good God a LibDem complaining about negative campaigning. I’ve seen it all now
On Topic. Mike I share your general opinion of Clegg. However, Huhne clearly looked pretty foolish yesterday and his briefing without doubt did overstep the mark. An apology is a mistake not because it is precious, but because it draws further attention to the dispute and makes the LDs look absurd. They should be looking to bury the hatchet (and not in each others backs).
So, so far, Cameron is winning the LD leadership race hands down. He must be wetting him self with glee.
“Gordon Brown’s pledge of “British jobs for British workers” appeared to be unravelling after …..John Denham, the Skills Secretary, indicated that foreign workers would be eligible for schemes that had been publicised as a way to ensure British workers could compete better against immigrants.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/19/nmigrants119.xml
80. Two good points, Peter.
66. Dan (and Mike) - I think you need to specify what you mean by good communication. The communication skill that Clegg’s team claim for him is the ability to talk to the public, not to the party (while maintaining Liberal values, naturally) and it’s this skill that people wonder whether Huhne has enough of.
75
‘The money has been loaned to the bank from the BoE. This is nothing like Black Wednesday, so stop ramping!’
This is clearly out of control,last week £23 billion and now a forecast of £ 45 billion,its think of a number time.
No need for any ramping as the ever increasing size of the government handouts do the ramping.
75 The taxpayer has a 25bn and rising loan out to a company thats worthless. do you seriously expect to get all that money back? now that is fantasy
86 “Both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne are outstandingly good politicians, communicators and Liberal Democrats (with the exception of yesterday, which I would rather like to see erased from the pages of history).”
Sense check: the evidence to outsiders is simply not there to support these statements. “Outstandingly good”? Get real.
68 I am happy to debate prospects for next May’s local elections with you once you have managed to get your head round which seats are actually being contested and by whom . For reasons which I have given before but you have been unable to assimilate these indicate no party is likely to end up with net gains or losses in 3 figures and probably 50 or so is the maximum .
Huhne’s made a big error here. That briefing was against the rules that were clearly set out to the candidates when the race began I can see why Clegg’s making an issue out of it - it’s returning all the momentum that he had lost previously
59
Don’t you think you’re getting a bit hysterical RedFlump?
NR were a badly run bank with an unsustainable business model. Letting the market deal with their failure would NOT have led to the collapse of the banking system in this country as you seem to be suggesting.
Of course, banks like Barclays and HSBC will have to take a hit over their exposure to subprime but they have been run on a far sounder basis than NR.
As for Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley who knows? But the failure of a few recklessly run businesses does not spell armageddon and would probably even strengthen those banks with a better business model.
The problem for this incompetent government now is: what the hell are we going to do with this money-pit of a basket-case called Northern Rock?
The solution to the Norther Rock issue is blindingly obvious.
We need a COBRA - at 6am - chaired by Chairman Brown.
95 Yes. Blair was outstanding. Cameron is good. Kennedy was ok. Unfortunately, the rest are at best average or below average at communicating their ideas.
Actually, thinking about it, I wonder why that is. Why do we have so many duff communicators at the top of the three main parties. I can just about forgive govt ministers if they are good at their job. But for the rest it’s all about communication. Especially the LDs.
86
‘So what has gone wrong? I think the answer is negative campaigning, which has come in from the USA, and is used in this country especially by the Tories. If this is undesirable among parties, it is even more so within them. It polarises people who ought to be working together.’
Is that the same negative campaigning that was used by Simon Hughes and his team at the Bermondsey by-election against Peter Tatchell with that stuff about the ‘Straight’ candidate?
96 Mark Senior I wrote about May 07 and the fact you were miles out in predicting LD cllr gains. You are the “Roger” of councillor predictions.
Vince Cable is likely to be proven correct about Northern Rock as he often is.
Posters accusing Labour of wasting taxpayers’ money on it are rather overplayed though - no government of any political colour can allow a banking crisis in the UK. It seems people simply don’t understand what the consequences of this would be. The shareholders must lose virtually the lot though - I suggest the UK shows a 10p bid for the shares as a gesture but that’s it.
98 The only question worth asking Darling now is “How much of the 25bn loan are you prepared to write off in order to achieve a politically expedient solution?”
Hideous Huhne vs Calamity Clegg. This is as almost epoch making as the John Pardoe camp in the 1970s leadership campaign complaining about the smear from David Steel that their man wore a toupee. Bet Mike, in his flash yellow sandals, and shoulder-length hair was a Pardoeist.
86 95
As I have said before, I expect the LDs to chose the wrong candidate. On the basis of what I have seen, that is a guaranteed result. Neither look good when compared to Cable.
But wdik?
Mike - nobody should be attacking you personally. But equally I think if you talk to people who have been to the hustings or watch most of the available videos you will see that Nick has done the best communication so far.
I particularly like this video as a way of showing how Nick reaches the parts that other politicians don’t:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKPCyQ03e6Q
Re 76. Icarus - I would love to join Gordon’s band-wagon but, alas, the invitation has not been forthcoming.
I gather there are two vacant apartments in Admiralty Arch as well as the one Malloch Brown is occupying. Just one of them would suit me as well as a place in the Lords, a ministerial car and driver and a nice salary.
My only other condition would be that I could carry on running this site.
104
And the honest answer would be: “all of it, and more” I suspect.
Electoral calculus has updated its website.
Broxtowe
Region: East Midlands
MP Nick Palmer (LAB) Electorate 69,943 Turnout 68.62% Top
2005 Votes 2005 Share Prediction
LAB 20,028 41.73% 41.62%
CON 17,897 37.29% 43.55%
LIB 7,721 16.09% 7.91%
OTH 2,351 4.90% 6.92%
LAB Majority 2,131 4.44% Pred Maj 1.93% CON Gain
Results for 2005 implied from new boundary calculations
[108] My only other condition would be that I could carry on running this site… which would retitled “Lording it on Political Betting”
110 Harry and that is BEFORE any Ashcroft money filters through.
No wonder the cats are worried.
96: Mark, while the Lib Dems will win seats of both parties it is unikely that they will cover the loses they will make.
110. Rejoice at that news.
There is something unusually charming about this thread . All this ‘If I may be so bold and you will I hope forgive me for speaking so candidly but I did feel-well ‘feel’ is probably too strong a word…….”
It’s clear that Mike doesn’t like either of these ‘mamby pambys’and I’m sorry to disappoint him but the chances of his party finding another leader from the SAS are small. Maybe he should lose his prejudices and become a Cameroonie and go for the ‘Mummy’s boy’ to end all ‘Mummy’s boy’s’ and forget about macho politics?
33. Yes, the government should have let NR go down in flames pour l’encourager les autres. As, indeed, it would have done had the employees and depositors been Conservative voting residents of Berkshire.
102 Fair enough HF , overall I got it wrong this May mind you , your Winchester forecast was totally wrong . I look forward to your detailed forecasts for next year and my pointing out there are not even elections in some of the councils you are predicting gains .
114 Coldstone You are being a little blogo-schizophrenic these days, with three personalities?
#110 and #112 - Not only the Ashcroft money - apparently a local businessman has put up £100K ‘to get Nick (and Vernon Coaker) out’.
Sorry all this talk about an elegant thread was written before the Blue Harpies junior colts (110, 114) made an appearance……….
112. But the Ashcroft money is a bit smelly - could be stinking by 2009.
” 72 - The money has been loaned to the bank from the BoE. This is nothing like Black Wednesday, so stop ramping! ”
Hmmm, not so sure… Panic government move due to an election that was about to be called seems to have backfired pretty badly?
Fair or not, that’s how it will be seen in the long run regardless of the rights and wrongs or good intentions.
Nationalising a high street bank that no one wants to buy with tax payers money to the tune of multi-billions is pretty damn serious and carries huge political risks and consquences.
This will have the sane effect on Labour that Black Wednesday did on the Tories. Labour might has well start packing up and prepare for opposition.
Brown and Darling were going to be screwed whatever they did to deal with the run on NR basically.
108: Will you settle for the sofa in my flatlet, Mike?
110/112/114: lol - I feel an “It’s neck and neck, join Labour now!” leaflet tcoming on…
110. Nick for the Lords!
113 Ralph , you may or may not be correct , see the results I posted yesterday from this May’s Met district elections ( over 1/3rd of the English seats being fought next May ) 28 LibDem gains 26 LibDem losses net gains + 2 .
Morning all
It’s amazing how a weekend’s decorating and Christmas shopping provides some much-needed perspective and however overtaxed or fed up we might be, ours is luxury compared to the poor souls in Bangladesh for example.
I finally got round to watching The Politics Show this morning. Having read the Tory trolls on here, I was expecting disaster - well, once again, they’ve overegged the pudding a wee bit. Did Chris Huhne not know about the leaked document ? I find it hard to believe it came as complete a surprise as he made out as he seemed to recover and go on the attack pretty sharp.
That said, I thought Nick Clegg did pretty well in response. He is uncannily Cameron-esque and showed too much of the Cameron brittleness yesterday. To be fair, Cameron was far from the finished article in the summer of 2005 and Clegg will grow into the job if he gets it. Whether the personal relationship between Nick and Chris could survive both being in the LD frontbench team I’m less certain.
I liked the edge both showed - the point made both before and during the piece is that we can’t be the “comfortable” party any more. As both Blair and to a degree Cameron have illustrated, there’s no future staying in the comfort zone.
So, have I decided where my vote is going ? As yet, no. Like Mark, I have a hustings to attend (next week) and will make my mind up after that.
Final point, it’s Mike’s site and he can say and do what he likes. We don’t HAVE to post here - Mike is entitled to his views as an LD member and that’s fine with me. I don’t agree with him and I think sometimes he imagines a leader is elected as the finished product. It never happens - being a leader is or should be a learning experience. The key for me is to establish which of Nick or Chris is the more likely to develop in the job as the person most likely to take the party forward.
121. Too much labour sleaze has gone under the bridge since 1997 (Ecclesone, Robinson, Hindujas, etc.) for the public to worry about Ashcroft cash.
126 - I’d love the prospect of Mike being banned from his own site. It’s what he deserves.
118
Three! think you’ve lost count, I make it four!
I might go sort of Roger Hargreaves (?) Mr Men: Coldstone leftwinger, rightwinger, authoritarian, libertarian etc.
I hope I don’t fit in anywhere.
Basically, tell me what gets up your nose the most, thats me!
67. 84.
It would be extremely unusual and unwise for the BoE to take credit risk on the scale implied by these posts, via directly taking over NR’s mortgage book. The BoE has a small balance sheet and no expertise in managing credit risk. Should the mortgage book start to deteriorate in quality, there would be serious problems.
But again international best practice has shown us the better route - the good NR assets should be sold, and the remainder hived off into a state-backed special ‘dustbin’ bank, to be wound down over time. These approaches have been ignored for political reasons.
“This will have the sane effect on Labour that Black Wednesday did on the Tories. Labour might has well start packing up and prepare for opposition.” Really? This is simply your opinion, and far from fact.
126 Very much agree with your post stodge , especially the point you make about a new leader developing into the new job as he gains experience and self confidence .
Alastair Darling to make a statement on NRK today - he’ll need his wits about him.
I think Mike is wrong about how Nick Clegg’s complaint will play outside the party and the comentariat, but he is correct that the incident makes the party look bad as a whole, but then the same is true of all bitter leadership contests and this is what this one is.
I am a declared Cleggite, but one who keeps thinking that Chris Huhne is coming across as awfully clever. So why given that I voted for Huhne in 2006 am I still voting for Clegg? The reason is worrying. I keep getting the sense that Chris Huhne is prone to snide and personalised attacks. I found Nick Clegg’s reaction to the repeated comments about his alleged support for education vouchers very telling. Presumably when Nick said that he had told Chris he had told him he did not support vouchers only the day before he was telling the truth. So why is Huhne running the line? I think this is about character and Mr Huhne failed the test.
134. Far more damaging to Clegg and Huhne was their determination to break the law over ID cards.
Do they believe that everyone has a right to choose which laws to break or do they think they’re a special case?
RedFlump “This is simply your opinion, and far from fact.”
Facts? When did we need those to confuse the picture. If Mike is going to start letting people express opinions on here the site really will go to the dogs (sorry Mighty Fella).
135 Of course the important thing do to when breaking laws it not to get caught. Ignoring pointless laws does not stop you having a successful career.
135. No Gabble, it won’t just be them. They’ll be heading about 2.5 million refuseniks so they’ll be in very good company. What are they going to do, arrest us all?
Clegg made a very good point as well, this legislation should it pass is unlike any other as it fundementally changes the relationship between the individual & the state. Once these insidious biometric cards came in you would no longer be yourself ’cause you know who you are, you would be the person the state says you are.
133- Sky news - “Darling On The Ropes Over Northern Rock”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91211-1293359,00.html
O/T - the latest and possibly last, Newspoll before Saturday’s Australian election.
ALP 54 (-1)
LNP 46 (+1)
Statistically irrelevant change.
Preferred PM:
Rudd 46 (-2)
Howard (+2)
I’ll write another article for Mike, but in summary