Lunchtime entertainment: watch the Deputy Prime Minister speaking Dutch

Isn't this great?

We find it strangely comforting that Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and now Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingom, can hold forth in the language of Erasmus, Eddie Merckx, Rubens and Herman Van Rompuy.

Simon Hughes - conspicuous by his absence?

Not much has been heard from senior Lib Dem left-winger Simon Hughes since his party tied the knot with the Conservatives this week.

Here's how he describes his political position: "all my adult life I have been on the progressive left or centre left of British politics".

So, how will he respond to this Lib-Con deal? Will he go into guerilla opposition mode, hiding in the political forests to lay ambushes for the new centre-right / progressive / liberal coalition?

Apparently not. He's posted a long article on his website explaining the spiritual gymnastics he's put himself through in order to support his party's position.

Obviously he feels he's got a lot of explaining to do - his article runs to 2,412 words.

Key quotes:

It was clear that the Conservatives were still willing to move further and faster in our direction than Labour.

*

In many ways not being associated with the Conservatives would have been an easier option, and one more natural given our very different political traditions.

*

the result of allowing the conservatives to form a minority government would be quite simply that we would have unqualified and unaltered conservative policies for the whole of the government's term

 *

The final proposals agreed with the Conservatives went much further than any of us could ever have expected. Each of our four major priority areas were agreed - with one exception. Conservatives would not support an immediate move to a fully fair voting system, but they did support a referendum on moving to the Alternative Vote (where people express their preference for candidates rather than just putting one single cross) which is a step in the right direction.

Sounds like he's going to be loyal to his leader and support the coalition. We've not heard a pip from him - or from anyone else - about his absence from the list of ministers in the new Clegg-Cameron government.

Astonishing, really, that such a senior Lib Dem is going to be on the back benches.

So, is it for life? Not quite:

Our ambition is to be in government on our own and we will fight the next general election to win as many seats from all the other parties as possible.

Watch this space.

Ending the war on motorists - a family business?

New Tory transport secretary Philip Hammond's first pronouncement: "We will end the war on motorists".

Is he by any chance related to Top Gear's Richard Hammond?

I think we should be told.

Vince Cable is going to be where the trouble starts

Vince Cable was unable even to begin his sentence when asked if he was looking forward to working with George Osborne. Eventually the interviewer had to supply an answer for him.

The little micro-fractures are there already.

If the Lib-Con deal is all going to fall apart, it will start with Vince. Watch this space.

The only metaphor in town - Clegg & Cameron's great marriage/gay wedding/civil partnership/love-in

The press have joined in the spirit of consensus government. They've become even more unanimous than the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Hark at 'em:

"David Cameron and Nick Clegg finally tie the knot" - BBC Newsnight

"Love-in", "Love-fest" - Daily Telegraph

(Although Benedict Brogan, elsewhere in the Telegraph, claims not to like all this sort of talk:

"The immediate reaction consisted largely of gags about Gilbert and George, civil partnerships and what one Tory described as "the apotheosis of metrosexual, public-school nonsense". There was something about two smoothies in nice suits flaunting their new-found closeness that invited some pretty lowbrow, junior common room humour."

But for all that, he still headlines his own piece with the words "the happy couple", and further down talks about "chatting up" and the "bloke they'd always fancied".)


"not so much a love-in as the exchanging of vows", "the couple who got married the day after meeting in Las Vegas" - Nick Robinson on the BBC

"The No10 love-in" - Daily Mail

"Mock pouting, misty gazing. This was pure Mills & Boon" says Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. "The Prime Minister said he had thought about forming a minority government. But once he and Nick had talked about it they had realised how much more inspiring it could all be if they went the whole way. Ahem."

"Happy couple Dave and Nick pledge conjugal devotion", "one side for the groom, the other for the other slightly more boyish groomette", "love-in" - The Times


"David Cameron and Nick Clegg: a marriage" - The Guardian


"In the spring garden the Clegg-Cameron civil partnership looked magnificent" - Polly Toynbee in the Guardian


"A shotgun wedding" - Michael White in the Guardian


"This may have been a shotgun wedding, but the couple were determined to convince us that they really have fallen in love", "The posh golden indoor seats outside made it look like a wedding", "the happy couple" - The Independent

"The very closest of mates", "quickest marriage in political history" - The Sun

"An awfully civil partnership" - headlines the FT. "Downing Street’s rose garden was tastefully arranged as if in readiness for a wedding; though in this case it was more of a civil partnership.  The grass was verdant; the sun shone; the blossom was in full bloom. The two young men were nicely turned out and full of sweet things to say about each other. Oh yes, this is going to be a very civil partnership."

"It's love" - says the Express headline.

And then of course Boris Johnson has to go and spoil it all by calling the deal "a kind of cross between a bulldog and a chihuahua".

Matt cartoon on the Clegg-Cameron marriage

Matt, in the Telegraph, has it perfectly, as so often.

UPDATE: the cartoon I wanted to link to has moved. It's now here.

Clegg and Cameron's piece of luck

Never before in the history of British governments have so many ministerial jobs been distributed among so few MPs.

Out of 55 Lib Dem MPs, 20 will get government jobs.

Had Lembit Opik not lost his Montgomeryshire seat, it would have been difficult not to give him a job. He is, after all, one of only three Lib Dem MPs that more than 10% of the public would recognise. (The other two being Nick Clegg and Vince Cable - though Nick Clegg is a latecomer to that list.) (At a pinch we'd give you Charles Kennedy as a fourth - his profile, like that of Lembit Opik, is boosted by regular appearances on Have I Got News For You.)

In many ways we'll all be sad to see Lembit go - but Lembit the in the Ministry? I don't think we're quite ready for that.

Cameron and Clegg will be grateful that in this way, as in so many others, their electoral stars were in perfect alignment.

Matthew Parris says in today's Times that the election worked out perfectly for Clegg and Cameron.

We'd be tempted to say they must have fixed the result - if only we could believe they were capable of fixing something so big and complex as a general election.

A design disaster at the heart of government

Good grief. I thought David Cameron's Downing Street armchair was bad.

Have you seen the Home Office website?

Same designer, I think.

Can anyone tell me - was it orange and blue before, or is this colour scheme all part of the new Lib-Con love-in?

Let's hope Theresa May, with her well-publicised sense of style, can sort this out.

Cameron and Obama on the phone: basic semiotics

Does your body language - or your surroundings - matter when you're on the phone?

Here's Obama talking to Cameron from the Oval Office:

And here's Cameron taking the call in Downing Street:

(from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream)

If the second photo wasn't from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream, you'd think it was some kind of Photoshopped spoof put out by the Labour Party.

I mean, it's not just the dodgy armchair upholstery (though someone ought to give that some thought).

It's the little wobbly table with the trailing phone cable.

It's the biro.

And it's just the general feeling that if is the best Britain can do, who's going to take this country seriously?

If I were a visiting alien chief, I think I'd know which of these two people I should be talking to.

Policy proposal: increase national prestige by scrapping Trident and spending the savings on a better-looking office for the prime minister.

First Prime Ministerial press conference in Downing Street

Cameron is talking.

Clegg is standing next to him trying to look suitably grave.

But Clegg must be pinching himself. Can he really believe he's just one Samantha-Cameron-Going-Into-Labour away from being Prime Minister?

In my previous post I wondered how Nick Clegg's wife must be feeling.

But Clegg himself must be feeling pretty up-ended, too.

Mrs Clegg

Do you think that when Miriam González Durántez woke up this morning she was surprised to find herself married to the Deputy Prime Minister?

I would have been.

PS This post wasn't originally supposed to be about John Prescott. That link just popped up when I Googled "Deputy Prime Minister". My original point was going to be: I bet Miriam González Durántez didn't reckon on waking up to find herself married to the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

"Big, open and comprehensive offer" Mark II

Who said this today?

"We would therefore like to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to Lib Dem supporters to come now and talk"

 David Cameron?

Wrong.

It's those cheeky Greens.

Here's a fuller quote:

"The Lib Dems have made themselves known as a party of dirty tricks in election campaigns. But now, Nick Clegg has carried out the biggest Lib Dem dirty trick so far, betraying all those people who voted Lib Dem because they honestly thought it would bring about electoral reform.

"Many explicitly campaigned as the best way to keep the Tories out of power, as a party of radical change and a party of principle, and they have now been completely let down by Nick Clegg and his top team. These members and supporters did not work hard over the last weeks and months to see their party become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tories.

"We would therefore like to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to Lib Dem supporters to come now and talk to the Greens instead. Many former Lib Dem members have already found a long-term home with the Greens, including former Lib Dem councillors. Thousands of Lib Dems will be unable to stomach this decision to put David Cameron's Tories into power, and it's time for them to consider coming home to the Greens.

Do you think any Lib Dem MPs will take up the Cheeky Greens' offer? Any names?

Missed punning opportunity for Menzies Campbell

It's a shame Menzies Campbell is no longer the Lib Dem leader.

Think of the fun we could have had talking about a "conmingling" of Tory and Lib Dem policies.

(That said - had Ming Campbell still been running the Lib Dem show, we'd probably not have a Lib-Con coalition today. It was the personal chemistry between Clegg and Cameron that made it happen.)

On legitimacy

The new Cameron-Clegg government will claim democratic legitimacy based on a combined 59.4% of the vote (36.46% Conservative, 23.03% Liberal Democrat).

That's one way of looking at it.

Of course, it's also true to say that not one single vote was cast for a Tory-Lib Dem coalition: there were no ballot papers with that option available, and no party manifesto explicitly offered it either.

0% of the vote looks a lot less legitimate than 59.4%.

What we don't know, and can't know, is how many people were "secretly" hoping for a Lib-Con coalition, while actually voting Tory, Lib Dem, Labour, or none of the above.

List of Old Etonian Prime Ministers

Of the 52 British prime ministers since Walpole, 18 (including David Cameron) were educated at Eton. That's more than 1 in 3.

1. Robert Walpole 1721-1742
2. John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute 1762–1763
3. William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham 1766-1768
4. Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guildford 1770–1782
5. William Grenville 1806–1807
6. George Canning 1827
7. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington 1828–1830 & 1834
8. Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey 1830–1834
9. William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne 1834 & 1835–1841
10. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby 1852, 1858–1859 & 1866–1868
11. William Gladstone 1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 & 1892–1894
12. Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury 1885–1886, 1886–1892 & 1895–1902
13. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery 1894–1895
14. Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour 1902-1905
15. Anthony Eden 1955–1957
16. Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton 1957–1963
17. Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964
18. David Cameron 2010-

UPDATE: a nickcleggsfault visitor enquires if Nick Clegg also attended Eton College. The answer is no. He attended Westminster School.

@HMQueen tweets Brown resignation!

Marina Hyde in the Guardian today:

Happily, we have yet to reach that landmark in human civilisation where the Queen tweets "PM just offered me his resignation & I totes accepted!!! ;-)". But it's presumably just the one election away. 

Cameron's dream, Tory & Lib Dem nightmare

So the Lib Dems have given David Cameron what he has long dreamed of, and what he could never quite achieve on his own: an entrenched leftward shift of the Conservative centre of gravity.

The bedrock of the Conservative party, though, the quiet heartbeat of the Tory shirearchy, will wake up this morning with the terrible realisation that their worst fears about Cameron were justified. He isn't really one of them. Cameron has swept their party out from under their feet.

And the Lib Dems find that their bad dream about finding themselves accidentally in bed with their worst enemy isn't a nightmare at all. It is real.

The Lib Dems will get used to this. It's easier to be a vegetarian among carnivores than a carnivore among vegetarians.

The quiet Conservatives of the Shires, the people who saw in Ian Duncan Smith a reflection of themselves, are going to find it a whole lot harder. They are the ones with the real nightmare.

Tories drop flagship policies

From Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph:

More intriguing are reports that Tories have offered policy concessions to sweeten the deal, including parking recognition of marriage in the tax system and inheritance tax. Can’t see it myself, but that’s the word around the rented trees of Port Ho.

 I can see it clear as daylight.

Cameron doesn't give one hoot, let alone two, about recognition of marriage in the tax system, and, narrow self-interest aside, I don't suppose he gives much of a hoot about inheritance tax either.

These policies were there to keep his right wing happy. That, the Daily Mail, and nothing else.

Now, with a 70-odd majority thanks to a Lib Dem coalition, Cameron can leave his right wing to the dogs. A couple of dozen old unreformables could rebel and they still won't bring down a Lib-Con coalition government.

Cameron will ditch these policies without a moment's regret.

So the Tories knew all along. Did anyone tell Gordon?

It's being suggested on the Telegraph news ticker that the "secret talks" with Labour yesterday were never anything more than going through the motions (for the reason suggested in a previous post).

the Lib Dems had already decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives and were merely "going through the motions" in opening talks with Labour

Malcolm Rifkind clearly didn't spot this.

But maybe Cameron knew. That's why he, Michael Gove and others, were able to take it with such equanimity.

The question though: did Gordon Brown know?


The tantalising possibility: Peter Mandelson knew (or guessed). But he didn't tell Brown. Did he let Brown believe that by resigning as party leader, a Labour-saving deal was possible? 


And so Brown fell on his sword. 


And the Dark Lord chuckled.

Tory policy: what a difference a few days make

Who'd of thunked it?

Conservative government policy is about to contain great chunks of the Lib Dem manifesto.

You've got to hand it to the Lib Dems - however cack-handedly they've handled these negotiations (and maybe there was no other way), they've squeezed the Tories by the gonads and, by god, they haven't half squeaked.