UK Election Special: Nick Clegg & The Liberal Democrats

Four weeks ago, no-one had really heard of Nick Clegg; now, he’s the name on everyone’s lips, front page news from Moscow to New York, and the potential future Prime Minister of Great Britain. What happened? Televised election debates.

Unlike America, we’ve never had these before – and the results have been dramatic. Having always been treated as a minority party by the media, Clegg’s Liberal Democrats were given an even platform with Labour and the Tories on primetime TV. With Labour politically moribund after 14 years in power and the Conservatives still struggling to shake off their ‘Nasty Party’ image of the Eighties, Clegg saw his chance and took it; pitching a perfect position between the two old parties, with an easy-on-the-eye performance designed purely – according to Lib Dem advisors – to give the impression of ‘a nice bloke to have a pint with’. Policy was low, Obama rhetoric was high; ‘change’ was the agenda, and Nick was the man to sell it. Lo and behold, the Lib Dems are now the hottest ticket in town.

As the expensively educated child of a financier, with traces of blue blood running through his veins, Clegg sounds, on the surface at least, like a natural Tory. His party, meanwhile, are in many ways at the other end of the political scale: anti-war, anti-nuclear, pro-drugs and in favour of redistributing wealth, their socially liberal stance was, until recently, only generally associated with sandal-wearers and spliff-hungry students. Where the two sides meet is on their approach to the state: like the Tories – and the vast majority of Americans – Clegg’s Lib Dems have no love of big government. His is a classic liberal stance, sprinkled with a dash of socialism: a hands-off approach from Parliament, with local governance brought to the fore and an emphasis on individual freedom, all paid for by a hefty tax on the super rich. However, like his policies – which include an amnesty for illegal immigrants and a £2,500 cap on bankers’ bonuses – Clegg can also be gleefully radical, whether claiming to have bedded a bonk-busting number of women or admitting on the recent debates that he wasn’t religious. Plus, his Spanish wife steadfastly refuses to be part of the campaign trail - change indeed.

And, it seems, irresistible change at that. While the Lib Dems remain highly unlikely to win the election outright, their massive rise in the polls makes a Hung Parliament all the more likely - which would see ‘that nice bloke off the telly’ become kingmaker extraordinaire. Labour and the Tories both know this, practically falling over themselves too woo their one-time whipping boy; what now remains to be seen is who Nick crawls into bed with come May 7th. Will he suppress his party’s centre-left principles and infuriate its core supporters by shacking up the Tories? Will he be left spooning with Labour despite its dismal recent record on civil liberties? Either way, a party whose members would have been planning their summer holidays six months ago are now frantically preparing for power – one way or another, it looks to be coming their way. Who said the revolution would not be televised?

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Who knew the name Nick Clegg one month ago? Now he is the second coming of Christ, or Obama. Sorry, sometimes I get those two mixed up. Kidding aside, I volunteered for Obama's campaign and was glad to see him elected. However, now that he is actually president, I view him as I do any other politician - with a mix of healthy suspicion and downright disgusts tempered by the acknowledgement that someone has to do the filthy job of running my corrupt country. Nick Clegg, despite being another man who blatantly salivates over the prospect of filthy jobs, is not the British Obama. Even British people know that, and it has been less than a month. I refer you to this hilarious list by Richard Adams .

That people initially jumped to this comparison speaks of a fundamental misinterpretation of the significance of Obama's election. His election hasn't brought more power to the people or subverted our disfunctional and increasingly polarized political structures by 'crossing the aisle' and bringing together coalitions to the right and left solve our mounting problems. Regardless of what pundits on the right and left bark, I reiterate: he is fundamentally a centrist politician. The real change ushered in by his election was social. Until John McCain croaked his last and Sarah Palin dissappeared (for a woefully short period) back into the depths from which she came, no one in America believed that a black man could be president. Sixty years ago, Obama wouldn't have been allowed to attend the same schools as the people he ran against. Cleggy boy went to Westminster school, which is one of the nine original British public schools (established by the Public Schools Act of 1868) and has the highest Oxbridge acceptance rate of any school in the world.

Of course, they do have one interesting commonality and it's one of those little secrets that most American liberals are actively trying to forget. Obama wouldn't have had a snowball's chance if he hadn't been preceded by eight years of a guy named W. In this, Barack and Nick have more in common than either would like to admit. They both surged to prominence because their well known adversaries are so despised by everyone else, all they have to do is avoid egregiousness. It worked for Obama, now let's see if Clegg can do that light-footed dance across the razors edge. I'd put money on it. After all, its not like he's got to keep it up for much longer.