Shrug

OK, it's only been three days, but I'm going to have to give in to temptation. I'm going to write about the Liberal Democrats, because it's their conference and I've been reading such a lot - no, seriously, you have no idea, such a lot - about it.

Back in the early days of the Coalition, I was deeply suspicious of the Lib Dems. Like many people, my trust in them had been dented. It wasn't tuition fees. Tuition fees made me roll my eyes, for sure, but rather than finding the move spiteful, I just found it moronic, because it's not as if tripling the already dreadful debt problem we have under the current shitty arrangement will get any more money out of our chronically underemployed grad population than it does at the moment. No, my trust of the Lib Dems was dented because of the apparent zeal with which the Lib Dems were prepared to accept the government's cuts agenda. This isn't because I believe, for definite, that current levels of public spending can be sustained. I don't. It's just that I have trouble with anyone accepting a government line with zeal. It suggests they haven't looked at the details properly.

So I'm glad that, in the end, the Lib Dems have chosen the line they have: staying liberal on a few key issues, being the spanner in the works. Andrew Lansley's startling attempts to cock up the NHS needed a spanner. George Osborne's relentless drive to place the needs of 300,000 rich people over those of 60 million of the rest of us needed a spanner too. With the current line they're taking, it seems that while the Lib Dems are in favour of cuts, they are at least in favour of cuts that don't privilege the predators at the expense of those of us at or near the bottom of the food chain.

Where I think the Lib Dems are most impressive, though, is in proving that you don't have to be in hock to the media to have an effective career in government these days - something I hated about Blair and hate, hate, hate about Cameron. The urge to oversimplify matters for the sake of a soundbite. The urge to 'take a line'. The urge to be seen to be acceptable. The urge to chuck away the long-term because it's better to do something cheap, easy and right now.

Clegg doesn't have this urge, or at least, not outside the Westminster village. His position with the media and the public is now such that, although he has to be politically savvy and play games within Whitehall, it just doesn't matter what he does. The media and the public already hate him, and they make that hatred quite clear. Cameron, meanwhile, is a darling of both the media and Joe Bloggs, meaning he does everything he can to maintain that reputation. What does this mean? It means that while Clegg can silently adopt a cunning long-term strategy, Cameron stands accused, by Patrick O'Flynn of all people, of governing by the seat of his pants.

Nick Clegg. He may not be popular, and he'll certainly lose heavily at the next election - but he's good in government, he's doing his best to stop the wilder elements of the Tories from shitting all over our heads, and for that, frankly, he deserves my respect.