Nic Prigg's Blog

Nick Clegg made a statement on Monday announcing that the government was going to drop Lords Reform, due to the fact that Cameron can’t control his backbenchers.

Nick Clegg started fighting back over Lords Reform by saying that since Lords Reform has been dropped, the LibDems will vote against the Boundary Proposals when they come back to Parliament.

The critics of the speech saying its tit-fot-tat politics at its worst.

I agree with those critics but I also believe it was the only option left on the table.

What was wrong with the statement is the fact that it needed to happen in the first place. Labour and the Conservative rebels rang rings around Nick pushing Nick into this position.

As a sports and in particular a tennis far, Nick was left scrambling around on the baseline so by the time of the final shot hit by Cameron, saying that he couldn’t get his backbenchers to support him on this, Nick was beyond the tramlines, where the only viable shot on the table was to hit a winner or hit the shot out.

Whether it goes in or not, is minor because even if it goes in, your not going to be able to hit that shot every time. However, being in that position shows you that something with your strategy is wrong, if your opponent was able to dictate play like that and in this case they were able to dictate play so easily.

It sadly appears to be the story of the coalition to date, with Labour and the Conservatives getting the easy shots and us, the LibDems having to play defence on every single point.

What is even more disheartening for someone who believes in the Liberal vision, is that Nick Clegg believes that if we keep going with this strategy that somehow, the electorate either in 2015 or 2020 will come back to us & that one day, we’ll manage to get a majority.

I have news for Nick Clegg, it won’t happen, if we keep the current strategy of trying to counterpunch everything that the Tories & Labour throw at us. Why? Because their good at offence, their not new to this whole politicking thing, they know that in order to get elected that you have to be able the attack stories as well as attack the other parties by putting the other parties in difficult positions.

Yet, at the moment, the only party who is being continually being put in difficult positions is the Liberal Democrats.

Nick conceded the game on Lords reform & hit back by threatening the boundary changes. Yet the press his statement received was mixed, some praised him (The Independent) and others hit straight back at him (Daily Mail). Tavish Scott thinks it brings fresh hope to the LibDems. It will only bring fresh hope to the grassroots if it comes with a new strategy. A strategy that doesn’t leave us scrambling around the baseline, trying to defend ourselves and the LibDems from the attacks that are coming from the left and the right, but leaves us fighting back strongly and Labour & the Tories scrambling around on defence.