Sunday 23 January 2011

Calamity Clegg

Just watched Clegg on Marr.

Apparently, we're just too stupid to really understand why raising tuition fees from 3k to 9k will cost students less than "under Labour"

We're too slow to have yet made the mental transition from majority government to coalition, we're still adjusting it seems.

We just don't have the sense to realise that he wasn't elected. He lost. (Actually I had grasped that bit CC)

If we only had the intelligence to see the brilliance of pupil premiums and higher tax thresholds, we wouldn't keep harping on about silly, prosaic things like rising unemployment, falling growth and soaring inflation.

We're way too ill-informed to have noticed that Clegg's Liberals had planned Lansley's NHS reforms all along.

We were also totally gullible to believe that Labour too, protected the poorest students from paying tuition fees or paying back student loans until their incomes reached a certain level.

Even Coulson is just misunderstood, and if we weren't so keen to victimise his new bessie-mate Dave, We'd see that clearly. (Twitch, twitch, adjusts nicotine patch)

So it's all our fault, now I get it. If only we could scale the dizzying heights of his intelligence, achieve his zen like clarity of vision and think with his razor sharp ability, we wouldn't be so mis-informed and naive.

I might start a game online. Give Clegg a policy and watch him defend it - anything'll do, shutting down all schools, staffing hospitals with 5 year olds, changing police uniforms to red spotty boxers and ponchos - actually I wonder if Tory HQ are secretly playing this game already? Perhaps after a weary day of axe-wielding, Dodger Osborne relaxes by dreaming up hilarious policies for Calamity Clegg to support on national TV?

"Dave, Dave, listen to this one - let's get him to say all baby kittens need to be culled. Ooh, wait, no, let's make it pandas, people really like pandas."

And off he trudges, twitching above that one eye a little, desperate for a Marlboro, explaining why pandas just weren't an efficient use of oxygen any more and if Labour hadn't done so much selfish breathing, all the pandas would be saved.

Bet he can't wait for the next election. At last he'll be able to revert to the LibDem comfort zone of promising free sweets for all under 15s, a cure for malaria and well, no more bad things anywhere ever again.

And if we don't believe him next time, we were just never clever enough to fully appreciate his vision of true genius. Obviously.

9 comments:

  1. Nick Clegg will very soon be a card-carrying Tory; very soon after the blood letting begins in the franchise that is Libdemology (cf Scientology) possibly after the combined bonfire of Lib Dem councillors and reverse on AV in May 2011 ..

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  2. Now that you've got that out of your system, I suspect you may need to listen to the interview again, only without putting your fingers in your ears...

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  3. Come on Liam, I listened. Have been Lab supporter through Iraq too, so know a bit about defending the indefensible.

    Was making fairly light-hearted point that if Clegg didn't get so snappy and imply it was all because people were so silly, we might listen a bit more.

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  4. I should really watch more political programmes and listen to what Clegg and cameron are saying but I really couldn't afford to buy a new TV

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  5. On tuition fees Clegg is behaving like a use car salesman who tells you the car you are looking at will only cost you £40 a week but fails to tell you that you will still be paying the £40 a week well after the car has been sent to the scrap heap.

    Clegg should tell people what the total cost of the fees will be rather than how much you will be paying back each week or month.

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  6. Not surprisingly, I have a different view:-)

    http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2011/01/nick-clegg-on-andrew-marr-gorging.html

    I think he did a good job of explaining that someone on a low income would pay less under the new scheme than under Labour, by quite some margin, a point which, amidst all the anger, has not actually been recognised.

    Marr didn't tackle him on all the benefits issues, which I'd liked to have seen - in fact, there were, as I point out, a few areas where he could have taken his wooden spoon out.

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  7. Thanks Caron, I'm really glad to see you commenting.

    To be a little fairer, my post was more satirical than serious. Can you explain the tuition fee thing? It might help?

    I do think Clegg needs to lose that slightly snappy (dare I say a little patronising) air. People don't like to think they don't understand or get it. That's just free spin advice, not a dig. Lol

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  8. Sue

    I found NC painfully unsubstantial... He did not lose a single opportunity to spin a line ... I ended up covering my head in embarrassment at the predictabilty and the twisting rationales.

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  9. This should be published somewhere. An excellent piece as well as my view all along. I just never managed to articulate it as well as you did :-)

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