'Liberal' is the New Liberal

Looking at arch courtier Iain Dale’s speculation about the position of Mr. Huhne I cannot help getting the déjà vu all over again feeling . What do we have here , a posh and plausible moderniser determined to get the Party elect-able by ditching its crazy socialist past. A Blair .Enter the older , better candidate ,passed over who has cemented his strength in the Party and must now be included Mr. Huhne who in our little play will be taking the part of Brown .
Clegg has had a clumsy canter or two at Cameron , one assumes for strategic reasons , but was able to win the leadership without committing himself to too many suicidal Liberal Dreams , notably keeping Trident .
Was his heart really in it anyway? He said ...“Conservative party which has no answers to the big issues: environmentalism without substance, social justice without money, internationalism without Europe."
Well adding substance to environmentalism is all too easy when you are not the government but actually turning growth off, or cancelling air travel, is politically ever so slightly touchy if you might have to do it . Clegg knows this, of course, and as a professed fan of a smaller state , his promise to spray tax payers money at “social injustice “ lacks a little substance itself. No no , leaving the EU aside for the moment , he is really offering Conservatism with a friendly face . Sound Familiar ? Blair again .
Of course while the wilder shores of activist placating were negotiated safely said activists proved themselves to be as politically unrealistic as you would, expect from a party whose raison d`etre , is to be Black Adders Queeny who wants “Oooooo just everything !” Kennedy has made rueful c remarks about the Herding Cats “ experience of leading the “none of the above” brigade and Huhnes impressive campaign achieved a damn fine run thing. Huhne cannot be ignored .It also cracked the always preposterous illusion that the Liberal are a nice Party. Au contraire, they are , as we all know past master at Dirty tricks from Simon Hughes “Straight Choice “ assault on Peter Tatchell onwards .
With ‘Calamity Clegg ‘and that ‘spat on air’, hanging around like an office Party snog , we can expect ill will , back biting and a slow but deadly wrestling match , Blair / Brown , again.
So I was wondering then when we were going to start referring to “New Liberals “ and “Old Liberals “ but it appears Mr. Clegg has come up with the perfect nomenclature . As we know the Liberal Party is composed of socialist refugees who jumped for labour too early and Liberal Liberals hence the name Liberal Democrats. What better sign of ditching the socialist element than return to being ‘Liberals’? It could imply going right back to Gladstone and Simon Heffer could join.
Alan Cochrane has noticed Clegg doing just that....
“I may be missing something but time and time again during his acceptance speech and his subsequent media interviews, Nick Clegg kept referring to himself and his supporters as 'Liberals'. There was hardly a mention of the name Liberal Democrat.”
So just as black ins the new ‘black’ , Liberal is the new Liberal . I wonder if Huhne , will demur and begin the long cold war. Nothing would be better news for the Conservative Party , he is more powerful than Brown was and it may all fall apart if Clegg tried to deal for power.

PS He`s Back........( The Europe Problem ...Heath reborn)
Cameron has said he can “Do Business” with Clegg but I doubt it .He may be able to do business with the Liberal voters bemused at their Party handing power to unelected faceless Bureaucracies in Brussels. Clegg is a Euro fruitcake with topping and cream he is more like Edward Heath than anyone else I can think of .. What was it Heath was saying in 1973, “There will be no loss of essential sovereignty “...and Clegg is telling the same lies now . If there is any supping to be done with this Blairy –man let it be with a very long spoon indeed.
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