Why do people hate Nick Clegg?

They had to go into coalition to make a government which was needed at the time!!! He did his best for the country at the time!!

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yeah..

Original post by SurreyJake

They had to go into coalition to make a government which was needed at the time!!! He did his best for the country at the time!!

I agree, but does anyone hate Nick Clegg anymore? I would have imagined most people would have just stopped thinking about him.

Reply 3

username878267

Original post by TimmonaPortella

I agree, but does anyone hate Nick Clegg anymore? I would have imagined most people would have just stopped thinking about him.

I would agree- he went from being adored to being hated to being largely irrelevant and ignored.

I don't think anyone 'hated' the lib dems at the last election per se in the same way people hate Tories or labour.

Although having said that he was a career politician who once he got power went back on pretty much all he stood for.

Reply 4

thisistheend

Original post by SurreyJake

They had to go into coalition to make a government which was needed at the time!!! He did his best for the country at the time!!

Snake.

Remember his stance on tuition fees?

Reply 5

SurreyJake

He had to make sacrifices for the good of the country, we don't know the mess we were in! Snake is harsh he's a nice bloke!

Reply 6

zippity.doodah

t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶o̶n̶e̶s̶t̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶u̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶i̶a̶n̶,̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶u̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶e̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶y̶. i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶e̶. b̶u̶t̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶h̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶e̶n̶g̶a̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶l̶e̶g̶i̶s̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶-̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶i̶n̶b̶e̶t̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶o̶y̶s̶.

people hate nick clegg because he's nick clegg -**** that guy

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 7

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by fukovski

raping clegg is high on my to-do list

Nice...

Original post by thisistheend

Remember his stance on tuition fees?

I can't decipher your post through all of its nuance...

Over 13 years, Labour broke plenty of election pledges including, lest we forget, their own pledge not to bring in top-up fees (“We will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them.” - 2001 Manifesto), not to mention abandoning their own 1997 commitment of delivering a referendum on parliamentary voting reform, much to the annoyance of Liberal Democrats (“We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons” - 1997 manifesto).

They even went so far as winning a court battle over their failure to deliver a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, getting the court to agree with the defence that “A manifesto promise is incapable of giving rise to a legally binding contract with the electorate”.

And the biggest kicker? They did much of this with a handsome majority of seats in the Commons, without the excuse of being the junior partner in a coalition government, which is actually a far more explanation than it’s often given credit for being.

Labour haven’t recently had to defend another party’s ideology to maintain government unity, which will hurt you far more than a couple of policy ideas failing to come through.

Source.

People are very quick to tar Clegg/the LDs with backtracking on their promises re: tuition fees, without recognising that it was the Conservatives that were the main force behind the bill; Labour were the party to introduce tuition fees; Labour then broke their own promise not to increase tuition fees; and that the LDs were the minor party in a coalition which meant that they couldn't get everything they wanted and had to compromise (whereas past Labour governments had no such constraint and still couldn't live up to their commitments).

People also omit to mention all the things the Liberal Democrats/Clegg did achieve: the Pupil Premium; Labour actually joined forces with the Conservatives to prevent LD-backed reforms to the Lords taking place; increasing the personal allowance (taking 3 million people out of paying income tax altogether and which the Conservatives took full credit for); preventing further damaging welfare-cuts; preventing the Conservatives repealing the HRA; creating a Green Investment Bank; helping introduce equal marriage etc. (Sources: 1; 2).

But, of course, people have a short-memory and are easily swayed by newspaper headlines and are only now beginning to see what the Liberal Democrats helped achieve/prevent whilst in government (as the minor party in a coalition).

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 8

thisistheend

Original post by Law-Hopeful

Nice...

I can't decipher your post through all of its nuance...

Source.

People are very quick to tar Clegg/the LDs with backtracking on their promises re: tuition fees, without recognising that it was the Conservatives that were the main force behind the bill; Labour were the party to introduce tuition fees; Labour then broke their own promise not to increase tuition fees; and that the LDs were the minor party in a coalition which meant that they couldn't get everything they wanted and had to compromise (whereas past Labour governments had no such constraint and still couldn't live up to their commitments).

People also omit to mention all the things the Liberal Democrats/Clegg did achieve: the Pupil Premium; Labour actually joined forced with the Conservatives to prevent LD-backed reforms to the Lords taking place; increasing the personal allowance (taking 3 million people out of paying income tax altogether and which the Conservatives took full credit for); preventing further damaging welfare-cuts; preventing the Conservatives repealing the HRA; creating a Green Investment Bank; helping introduce equal marriage etc. (Sources: 1; 2).

But, of course, people have a short-memory and are easily swayed by newspaper headlines and are only now beginning to see what the Liberal Democrats helped achieve/prevent whilst in government (as the minor party in a coalition).

ur not in MENSA r u mate?

Reply 9

Manitude

>Got into government.
>Voted in favour of tripling tuition fees.

Tuition fees :mob:

- He betrayed one of his biggest support bases (students)
- Destroyed and has made the liberal democrats irrelvant within 5 years
- All he managed to do was say sorry a million times in his artifically managed oration

He's basically what most people think of when they hear the word politician.

Reply 12

Flibib

Clegg was always going to be hated by everyone:

- The Lib Dems have historically seen to have much more policy overlap with Labour than the Tories and so it baffled and angered the left that he led the LDs into coalition with the Tories.
- For the same reason, it angered a lot of Lib Dems that he moved their party to the right without having a cast iron mandate
- It angered the Tories that they had to rely on a coalition partner at all, and the fact is that they did 'water down' some of their planned legislation.

My own anger comes from the fact that the Lib Dems held all the cards and they have been harping on about AV/voting reform since the dawn of their existence and Clegg utterly failed to negotiate a good deal for his party and the country. It was, perhaps, the best opportunity this country will have for decades (if not more) to get rid of the utterly undemocratic FPTP, and Clegg wasted it for a ministerial car and that is something I really cannot forgive.

Lastly, the fact is that Clegg made something of a unilateral decision to go into power with the Tories (despite being v. divergent policy wise) based on the fact he had a personal dislike of Gordon Brown; that is not a statesman like way to behave, not a bit of it.

Reply 13

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by 1338

So are you saying that we should accept the Lib Dems however incompetent they are just because they're not as bad as Labour?

Clearly not; I'm merely pointing out that those that give the LDs such a hard time for breaking a promise they made, for a scenario in which they are the majority party but ended up being unable to carry out as the minority party of a coalition, tend to not give the LDs credit for what they did achieve and rarely acknowledge that Labour have broken similar promises in far more advantageous positions.

Of course the LDs weren't perfect, but it's unfair and totally lacking in nuance not to recognise their constraint as the minor party in a coalition and the achievements they made given their circumstances.

Also a lot of the policies the Lib Dems actually implemented were pretty useless, wasn't one of them that no child can have a detention (or something along those lines). That may be a good idea for some high performing schools but I can assure you for a lot of schools that's not necessarily a good thing.

I think you have completely misunderstood that reform... :facepalm:

What they ended was the "detention of children in immigration cases", not school detentions...

Reply 14

Incongruous

He could have been great. He could have entered a supply and agreement arrangement with the Tories, which would have allowed them to burn down the worse of the Tory proposals more effectively. It would have allowed them to vote down the worse Tory ideas which they allowed to pass through.

Reply 15

JuliusDS92

Original post by Law-Hopeful

Excellent post.

Reply 16

SurreyJake

Original post by Law-Hopeful

The Lib Dems knew exactly what they were in for when they sold their souls to the conservatives. Nick Clegg knew full well that he didn't have a chance of preventing a rise in tuition fees, yet he still chose to go along for the ride for a little taste of power. Whether or not his intentions were good to begin with is irrelevant, he's proved himself to be completely spineless and thankfully seems to have forever condemned his party to be an amusing footnote in British politics.

Good. This country deserves better than the likes of Nick Clegg.

Reply 17

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by JuliusDS92

Excellent post.

Thank you.

The posters blindly chanting "but tuition fees!!" merely prove my point(s).

Reply 18

Illiberal Liberal

Original post by 1338

Alright then, excuse me for that error but he didn't make that clear in his resignation speech, much like he didn't make any of his other policies very clear :tongue:

Actually I think the media are largely responsible for the misinformation (/dearth of information) re: the LDs record in government. But I also think the LDs themselves didn't do a good enough job of distinguishing themselves and making clear what they were working to achieve/prevent in (coalition) government.

Original post by SurreyJake

This isn't even worth replying to.

Reply 19

Handles

He's going to be my MP soon. :laugh:

Honestly, I quite like him, and @Law-Hopeful has kind of summed up why. I'll also add that Clegg, along with other Lib Dem ministers, had to vote for tuition fees as part of Cabinet collective responsibility, which is something people also overlook with regards to the Welfare Bill fiasco (which isn't law yet, I believe). If Clegg had voted against the rise in tuition fees then it could have made the Government seem weak at a very early stage in that Parliament, which wouldn't have aided any efforts at an economic recovery. (For the record, I don't think the Coalition's economic plans were great either, but that's not my point.)

Clegg and the Lib Dems managed to prevent many things from happening. Snoopers' Charter (mass-surveillance), scrapping the Human Rights Act, cutting renewable energy investment, watering down the hunting ban, etc.. And of course, Lynne Featherstone was the architect behind equal marriage.

Another worthwhile point is the AV referendum. Clegg wasn't given the best deal in the world, as AV wasn't really what he wanted to campaign for, but it was all that the Tories were offering. Despite it not being great, it's still better than FPTP, so it would have been an improvement. If Clegg had rejected that deal - along with things like the rise in tuition fees - then it's likely the Lib Dems couldn't have secured the passing of many of their own reforms. Also note that Labour didn't have an official position in the AV referendum, so it ended up looking like the small parties were just stomping their feet at the fact that they didn't have more seats.