Oi Cameron, you’re manifesto talks about personal responsibility and doing things for yourself so stop hiding behind Andy Coulsons skirts, man up and do your own scrutiny.

This election is wide open now. Voters are more ‘partisan-dealigned’ than EVER before.
It’s a huge opportunity for ALL Parties that aren’t the ‘main two’. Clegg’s stylish (if fairly substanceless) performance on Thursday night has made people reassess whether they have to vote Labservative. The LibDems will profit in many seats – and the SNP, Plaid, Greens, Respect, independents will profit in others.

BBC 2 Now

Chris Hunes jacket???

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

There goes the post debate bounce

Not quite “reinventing himself as a Yorkshireman” all he’s saying is that he’s MP for Sheffield and he’s proud of the city that he’s made his home. I mean, what are the daily fail trying to say? That no one should ever move home ever?

Now the NOTW has dug up a few late reminders for Vince Cables leccy bills –

http://blogs.notw.co.uk/politics/2010/04/vince-cable-cant-do-his-sums.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+notw/politics+(Politics+-+News+of+the+World)

I’ve posted a reasoned response, not sure how long it takes to appear though

I see Clegg only ever went to private schools and his dad was a banker. The left despises people with privileged backgrounds, don’t they? Oh, except when they’re Nick “I’m an MP in Sheffield, you know – only the other day I was talking to somebody who used to work in a steel mill” Clegg. Ah well, at least he’s not called Rupert.

The left despises people with privileged backgrounds, don’t they?

Not as a general rule, no. The left despises people from privileged backgrounds who don’t understand that other people’s lives are different from their own, or look down on those who are different. Liberals tend not to care much about where a person comes from, but rather more about what they do and how they do it.

George W Potter @ 4:

Well, being as he’s MP for Sheffield Hallam he’s not going to let on that he thinks it’s a dive in comparison with Chalfont St Giles where he was born, is he!
And wasn’t it only a month or two ago that Sunny H was arguing that it was legitimate to play the class card to its utmost with regard to David Cameron? Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.

Bit too dailykos “oh look, millions of people have had a simultaneous epiphany and come around to my way of thinking” for my liking.

If those five-ish million people (yeah, I know turnout isn’t 100%) can be turned one way based on a tv show, then surprisingly enough they can be turned back just as easily.

Excuse my ignoble sentiment, but I can’t help wondering how that 5 million might break down in terms of gender. I mean, he’s not a bad looking bloke, is he.

Very funny watching the tory media absolutely shitting themselves now it looks like Call Me Dave might not win

Personally I would have no problems with the Lib Dem surge if it was based on people reading their manifesto and saying “I agree”. Alas it seems to be based on a TV performance.

Is this what we’ve come to?

Have the Conservatives started issuing wax dolls of Nick Clegg for us voters to stick pins into?

The personal attacks on Clegg are so predictable from our so-called media and they will get more vicious over the next few weeks. The Tory dogs of war in the blogosphere will dutifully follow in a coordinated manner. Interestingly when the polls first started pointing to a hung parliament three months ago the Tory base reaction was outright denialism. ‘ The polls are wrong. There is a conspiracy in the mainstream media because they want a close election. The Tories don’t want to win. ‘ Every fruitcake theory was aired in order to avoid facing reality. They were so convinced that victory was inevitable, it never occurred to them that the public wanted a hung parliament. Moreover, no matter how unpopular the government is a huge proportion of the population still view the Tories as toxic.

Now that denialism has given way to panic they are all threatening to leave the country if the Tories do not win. That would make them immigrants in some other country and they are supposed to be anti-immigration. I hope Clegg has a thick skin because the Tory press and blogosphere will get a whole lot nastier from here.

@14: “Now that denialism has given way to panic they are all threatening to leave the country if the Tories do not win.”

Has anyone started a collection yet to pay for their tickets?

Richard. You are wrong, shock as that may be.

Yougov and ICM show rises of 4% and 7% respectively that occurred BEFORE the leaders’ debate. The fact Lib Dem’s got a secondary bounce after that is actually, potentially, a slightly smaller effect than that of the LIb Dem policies getting a good day of discussion and news time.

People are turning on to the Lib Dems from the basis of policy, the polls reflect this.

“Sterling retreated against major currencies overnight after Nick Clegg’s winning performance in the televised campaign debate between party leaders fanned fears of a hung Parliament.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7099373.ece

This is excellent news, surely.

A weaker Pound is just what we need to boost exports and price out imports when public spending is being cut back, business investment is running well down on a year ago and consumers are being urged to pay down debt and save more.

@14
Denailism? Why not use two syllables when three will do.

And, likewise, people who a week ago did not give a toss about Nick Clegg are fawning all over him. After all, my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2010/apr/17/nick-clegg-tv-debate-effect-london-constituencies#start-of-comments

“I was surprised by the size of the Clegg Effect. That might be partly because the lack of a TV signal in the corner of Cornwall where I and my family stayed throughout last week meant that, unlike most fellow voters, I heard the first leaders’ debate on the radio rather than watching it on a screen, which seems to have suited the Lib Dem leader’s style so well”.

I’ve heard several similar accounts from people who heard the debate on radio rather than seeing it on TV. This says something about the nature of his appeal.

I wonder what the Murdochs are thinking at the moment? They have never backed a loser before, but it seems they might have this time.

Maybe they’ll get Mike Riley in to count the votes.

@20 Let’s hope so. Their insistence on paywalls may be their financial undoing, a hung parliament and Lib-Lab cooperation to bring in electoral reform and other goodies might be the death knell for their political influence too.

The single most important thing that could happen in British (and global) politics, is the removal from power of Emperor Murdoch, his kids, Rebekah Wade, Paul Dacre, R Desmond, and so on.

I’m not a supporter of the Lib Dems – though I wouldn’t absolutely rule out voting for them. However I find nearly all the criticism of Clegg and the Lib Dems extremely counterproductive. Columnists seem to be trying to scare people into not voting from them – not even because of their policies but because of fears of a hung parliament. (I can see that why this wouldn’t be a good outcome but I don’t think it should be used to pressure people into voting for a party they don’t support.) Others are sneering at Clegg’s performance in the debate even though he obviously did well (in what is admittedly a comparatively superficial, though not completely substanceless exercise). I don’t care what his background is – I don’t care what Cameron’s background is either. I also don’t care whether he went to sleep while his wife was in labour – you can be in labour for hours after all.

“Lastly – the progressive majority is finally here. ”

I’m not sure that’s entirely true you know. Depends how you define “progressive”. The Lib Dems are pretty much split down the middle. The Orange Book side (which Clegg is very much from) is very definitely neo-liberal rather than the more traditional meaning we ascribe to “progressive” in the UK.

I’ve said many a time that if it weren’t for the EU question I’d be in that Orange Book part of the Lib Dems. Which should give you an indication of quite how neo-liberal they are.

“I can’t help wondering how that 5 million might break down in terms of gender. I mean, he’s not a bad looking bloke, is he.”

Would be interesting to discover whether the mooted 30 or so who have actually tried him out are for or against, certainly.

There have been warnings aplenty that George Osborne and Chris Grayling are electoral liabilities for the Conservatives.

The rational expectation was and is that something constructive would have been done to address that but those expectations have been dashed. The ascendancy of Nick Clegg in the polls ranking the party leaders is the natural consequence – that and the continued high placing of Vince Cable in polls ranking the Treasury spokesmen of the three main parties.

Cameron is on a crucial test in showing how he responds to this situation. So far, he has been found wanting.

I agree with Sarah AB
The snide attacks on Clegg by Tory henchman like trofilm show that they, the Tories, are running scared.
I did enjoy the idea of Gove calling the lib dems eccentric.
Methinks pot calling.
Trofilm what are you going to do with all those hardback manifestos
1. Give them away to an African country. Like an old unused textbook
2. You, Emily, Matt and Nick Cohen selling them off at Camden market.
3. Give them to Ashcroft so he can work out his tax exile receipts

Most appalling was (surprise suprise) the Daily Mail’s attempt to smear Nick Clegg by depicting him as “the least British” of the three leaders. Just because his bloodline is not “pure pedigree”. Not for the first time, whether by chance or intentionally, the language of the far right is finds a voice in the tabloids.

I hope we all agree that the papers’ increasing analysis of people’s worth according to the “purity” of their breed and bloodline is absolutely appalling and increasingly fascistic.

Controversy recently hit Italian football as some Italian “ultras” (roughly the equivalent of British “hooligans”) rejected the idea of a young player called Mario Balotelli being included in the national squad. The reason being the colour of his skin. “He’s not a pure Italian”, the “ultras”spewed.

This echoes the vile old days of English hooliganism, when players like John Barnes were being booed off for not being “English” enough.

In his quest for hitting the rock bottom of style and decorum, the Daily Mail has now reached the equivalent of the racial purists of football hooliganism.

“the Daily Mail’s attempt to smear Nick Clegg by depicting him as ‘the least British’ of the three leaders. Just because his bloodline is not ‘pure pedigree’.”

Tut, tut! Evidently, the editor and journalists of the Mail are so unfamiliar with our literary history that they are unacquainted with Daniel Defoe’s satirical poem: The True-Born Englishman. This link is to the edition of 1703 – Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, is widely credited as the first novelist writing in the English language:
http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm

A taster from the poem:

A true-born Englishman’s a contradiction,
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction . .

(On the other hand, the next being to compare ol’ Clegg to Barry O will be given a seeing to that’ll make Asami from Audition look like a masseur.)

@Claude – compared to the Daily Mail’s racial purity approach the News of the World attack, linked to in the OP, actually looks quite reasonable. The Mail’s comments about his social class were bad enough but this bit – I looked up the article after reading your comment – was just *awful*. “Despite his Anglo-Saxon name, Nick Clegg is by blood the least British leader of a British political party, the son of a Dutch mother and a half-Russian merchant banker father.”

@30: “Clegg is by blood the least British leader of a British political party, the son of a Dutch mother and a half-Russian merchant banker father.”

Not forgetting that Disraeli, one of our more illustrious Conservative prime ministers, was the grandson of immigrants to Britain, something the Mail seems to have overlooked. But then Disraeli’s notion of One Nation Conservatism is a tad embarrassing, isn’t it? And Disraeli wasn’t even baptised a Christian until he was 12. Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli:
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/182429/1/Portrait-Of-Benjamin-Disraeli,-1st-Earl-Of-Beaconsfield-$281804-81$29-1880.jpg

Btw Daniel Deofoe’s satirical poem: The True-born Englishman (1701), was written in response to critics of William, Prince of Orange, who was invited by Parliament in 1688 to become sovereign as William III, jointly with his wife Mary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England

I’m continually amazed at how little English history Mail journalists are familiar with. Michael Gove should be giving them a little tuition.

“Despite his Anglo-Saxon name, Nick Clegg is by blood the least British leader of a British political party, the son of a Dutch mother and a half-Russian merchant banker father.”

In theory this means that he (and his wife for different reasons) could be a non dom. Has anyone asked him whether he is or not?

Allow me to quote something the late Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton said in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge: The Future of the Past (1968):

Now one of the most curious things about the English, I think . . . is that they suppose themselves to be conscious of history and to be enveloped in History. They are not. They are both indifferent and ignorant as far as history is concerned. If you want a really historically conscious country you have to go either to Central Europe, where they have too much history . . . or to the United States, where they have so little of it. I think that England could do with knowing more about its past, but that’s always been so.

Quoted in Norman Davies: The Isles (1999). Geoffrey Elton was born in Tübingen, under the name of Gottfried Ehrenberg. He fortunately managed to reach Britain in 1939 and, in due course, became Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. He was uncle to Ben Elton.

He is related to Ben Elton isn’t he

Tim W
A little naughty
We could repeal laws on Catholic emancipation you know.

“We could repeal laws on Catholic emancipation you know.”

The emancipation act of 1829 was pushed through Parliament, with difficulty, by a combination of the Duke of Wellington as PM in the Lords and Robert Peel in the Commons. It was Tory legislation. But don’t think of Wellington as someone with natural libertarian or egalitarian instincts. He was strongly opposed to the modest franchise reform finally approved by Parliament in the Reform Act of 1832,

With all the stuff about Nick Clegg’s foreign blood, I’m surprised that no has mentioned Winston Churchill, whose mother, Jennie Jerome, was American.

Btw Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest serving monarch, “was of mostly German descent, the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_of_the_United_Kingdom

Richard 1 : A Norman who spent only 6 months in England, yet his statue is outside parliament.
Don’t get me on the morons that boo the German national anthem and yet bleat out an anthem giving allegiance to a German middle class family and then point to their 3 lions. The symbol of a franco norman state. Not forgetting st george was an Armenian
AHHHHHHHHHH

“We could repeal laws on Catholic emancipation you know.”

Why…so Cleggy’s wife cannot vote? (and me of course).

It was a bad joke Tim
Sorry

The Tories always play the race card BUT this race card will back fire

“It was a bad joke Tim
Sorry”

Sorry?

I’d far rather jokes that are attempted. some of whhch fail, even at my own expense, than no joke attempted.

“Bad joke” is just fine by me.”Sorry Tim” ain’t so much.