Calamity Logic
Guido had his good impression of Clegg diminished during his leadership fight with Huhne, which he won (just) on votes while Huhne won on style and determination. Interviewed yesterday Clegg tried to justify wriggling out of his manifesto promise to hold a referendum. He claimed that the Lisbon Treaty was too "measly and paltry" to hold a referendum on. He was then asked whether the UK needs a clear cut definition so that we can judge if something is constitutionally significant and therefore warrants a referendum?Clegg: "I strongly agree with that. There's some good organisations, an organisation which I think is great is Unlock Democracy which is putting forward some ideas about how we could get some sort of logic into when a referendum is appropriate or not." (BBC 5 Live, 27 February, 2008)
That would be the Unlock Democracy group which put out a statement on Tuesday from its director Peter Facey criticising the Lib Dems for refusing to back a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty saying: "they should back down and support the Conservative amendment." Logical?
33 comments:
It is obvious we must have a referendum on a matter as constitutionally significant as handing our independence over to the EU.
Yes none of our political leaders want one, whether they promised one in the past or not.
Are politicians really so thick, they cannot understand this is why they are held in low esteem?
Surely he can praise Unlock Democracy without having to agree with everything they say?
Don't get ya Guido...
It seems that the USA sub-prime problem has rippled over to
Japan. And the consequences are set to be disastrous.
The Origami Bank has folded...
The Karaoke Bank is up for sale – and going for a song...
Shares in Kamikaze Bank have nose-dived...
Sumo Bank has gone belly-up...
The Bonzai Bank are cutting their branches...
Samurai Bank are forecasting a sharp cutback...
1,000 staff at Karate Bank have got the chop...
And rumour has it that something fishy is happening at Sushi Bank and staff are predicted to get a raw deal..
I want a referendum on whether to allow MPs to be Hung, Drawn and Quartered if a majority of voters in their borough approve at the next election opportunity.
If an issue like this isn't important enough for a referendum then what on earth is?
Clegg - you're either a fool or a knave.
Don't think the Libdems do 'logical'
Is he Gordon Ramsey's sous chef?
O/T "Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has demanded to know why the case of disgraced MP Derek Conway was not referred to Scotland Yard."Presumably because some Labour members will also have to be referred as well, including Brown and his office rent inquiry? Of course, some of the MPs can't run very fast and might be shot by the police!!
Does any one care?
It would only become an opportunity for the Daily Mail/UKIP/BNP to get over excited about bashing Europe and trot their xenophobic hobby-horses around the country.
It wouldn't actually change anything, or have any impact on people's lives.
A referendum on legalising drugs, MPs expenses or banning prozac would be more interesting...
Guido, I agree with 99.9% of everything you write and I am a fan but please don't write "it's" when you mean "its".
Please forgive this pedant for not having anything better to do at the moment.
Clegg is weak and just not up to it.
Reneging on their promise is so disgusting. The LibDems now have no moral authority on anything.
I hope they split right down the middle, or die.
i find this one incredible , apparently 15 limp mps are going to tell him to shove his cameron impression up his arse one said "my party leader has done three line whip on to abstain on somthing that we have put in our manifesto pledge, he is aking us not to vote on somthing we have said we will vote for , its just unheard of"
it seems as though mr clegg is getting gordon browns disease , parlimet is wank, procedures are wank , now some of his own mps are wank .
the red despot spotter has for some time believed that a number of lib dem mps are wank , but he has kept this as polite exchange and formal party politics and respected the differences . For the lib dem party leader to be now threatening any wanker that his not his sort of wanker , over a wank manifesto pledge to join the extremely corrupt EU and waste our tax money to boot. is just plain wanking in the wind.
i also hear that terressa may stuffed harpic in business questions when she found an error in murphys anti referendum circular , that admitted they had broke there manifesto pledge.
hooray they are getting found out at last.
as for clegg, being as iam quite sure that a lot of people now think the EU is wonk , will he see that it would be a good time , to let his sceptics speak or at least vote , that is unless he is transforming himself in front our eyes from "from chuck norris to mr chuckles the childrens entertainer "
stanislav and lola nice piece 45gov very nice piece
I think Clegg's doing really well stirring things up. The other two parties. and Labour in particular, give the impression that they're absolutely terrified of him and will stop at nothing to drown out anything he has to say. If he was ineffective, they wouldn't bother.
Clegg - you're a disgrace to your party and politics - step down in favour of Huhne, and give your party a fighting chance at the next Election.
"I think Clegg's doing really well stirring things up."
You're joking aren't you? LimpDem popularity hasn't improved one jot since they dumped that old duffer whose name I forget. Quite an achievement.
There are two reasons why the Lib Dems have welshed on the EU referendum.
Fisrtly, an in-or-out ultimatum is the only EU referendum that stands a chance of getting a 'yes' vote from the British people.
The second reason is that Clegg wants a blank cheque from the voters so politicians can sign up to anything they please, regardless of whether or not the British public want it. If voters complain, he can smugly turn around and tell us that this is what we voted for.
We do, on the whole, wish to remain part of the EU. We would simply like a say in the direction the EU takes. We're like 'bus passengers. We got on the correct 'bus only to find that its destination has changed since we caught it. Labour don't have a clue where it's heading and frankly don't care if it's where the passengers want to go or not, and the Liberal Dingbats want to lock all the doors and stop anybody getting off while they take the 'bus around the houses.
A very, very bad start from Clegg.
Well it is only necessary to look at his face....that tells more than a thousand words.
There's a lot of it in the Liberals.
Desperate Dan [4.35]
"I think Clegg's doing really well stirring things up."
The only thing Nicola Clegg is stirring up is support for Chris Huhne!!
Go back to your Cow Pie, desperate one...
You have to laugh at the term "liberal". What the hell do they mean by it? What is so liberal about shipping all the nation's powers to some overseas bureaucracy just because they happen to agree with it and know that it means that the UK political parties won't then be able to grab the powers back?
Not only that they know full well that the ID Card legislation was prompted by an EU dirctive that states that the whole of the EU must have some sort of ID Card. Well that's bloody "liberal". We all have to carry around some daft piece of plastic because the EU tells us we must.
"Liberals" my ass. Bunch of fucking fascists. If the EU is so fucking shit hot why don't they just let us have a vote on it? Bound to be in favour aren't we? Which will give the "Constitution" some sort of legitimacy, right? They won't give us a vote on it because they know full well that the people that could be arsed to get out and vote would say "NO"!
It's so patently obvious that it makes you want to puke. Then they wonder why we hate them. Complete cunts. Its like listening to the politburo of the USSR justify themselves.
I'd like to take a Samurai sword to the lot of them.
Anon 4:17
If you are against the EUSSR you are called "xenophobic".
Why is love for my country besmirched by you bastards as being automatically "xenophobic".
I love England and I do not hate anyone. Got it.
We have taken abuse like this for years.
Understand you person - I do not give a rat's arse for your opinions any more.
Clegg strikes me as just another typical LibDem empty vessel.
He'll say anything to opportunistically gain votes and only believes in office.
Trouble is that I get the impression the handsome Mr Clegg just may be more apparently opportunistic than his Caledonian predessors.
"It would only become an opportunity for the Daily Mail/UKIP/BNP to get over excited about bashing Europe and trot their xenophobic hobby-horses around the country."
I'm not xenophobic. I feel I have a lot in common with the 50% of Europeans that hate the EU and everything it stands for. Like them I feel totally disenfranchised by the EU, and everything it does I implicitly disagree with.
The EU has been set up like a honey trap. The more you try to struggle away the more it pulls you under. It doesn't need to legitimise itself. There is no escape. Eventually it will have full power over all Europeans. No need for democracy. No accountability. The vast majority of MEPs implicitly agree with the EU, and the vast majority of people that vote for their MEPs implicitly agree with the EU. Those that don't agree with the EU have no say in the matter. They have no voice, they are forgotten, and ridden over, rough-shod. Their opinions count for nothing.
Until war in Europe breaks out when the EU fuckwits screw up like they inevitably will.
Clegg does come over as a not so effective 6th form debating wonk.
No doubt he still supports bio-fuels, which even the mighty George Monbiot rubbished on the Daily Politics today.
good on monbiot , thats another EU scam , which even a basic maths person could work out was going to send food prices rocketing.bio fuels was mandelson effort in co with huge german car lobby , USA should have thought it through more as well.
as for cleggs 6th form debating preference , he still hasnt realised that UK parliment is far more demanding , than zombie press to vote EU, after you get the cash bung idea .
cameron was right there is no opposition politics in the EU and thats why its so crap, i just whish a few more could see it .
I distictly recall that the first person to suggest an EU in/out referendum was, in fact, Keith Vaz. Vaz, in my opinion, is the kind of slimy slug who terminally weakens any cause that he supports. Clegg is in danger of acquiring a particularly nasty political bedfellow. He should think a bit harder on the path he is dragging his party along, because the current one has filth at the end.
This is because rather than shake the hand of a Tory, the average LiB Dem would prefer to suck the cock of a Labour politician even though the particular cock was dripping with pus.
The Lib Dems are an odious bunch of slimy, gutless fuckers who should all fuck off.
johnfromcamberley... just about to retire at 11.06 I experienced a frisson of nausea at the thought of Keith Vaz as a bedfellow. I think I may sit up all night just in case.
Clegg is an internationalist; Christ he worked for the EU. He is part of a globalist plot to destroy the nation state. He couldn't give a damn about a referendum. WAKE UP!
That dossier on 'Calamity Clegg' is seeming so much closer to the truth now...
Clegg has an identity crisis over the EU. On the one hand he acts so as to give it more and more power, but on the other hand his resignation as an MEP and his working to be the Lib-Dem leader in the UK Parliament implies that he thinks the power still lies in the UK.
A typical split personality?
Bloody Freaks
Anon 10.23
He has got to be the worst kind of Gemini. The whole of the Libbies are lined up tongues hanging out waiting for a miracle. It ain't going to happen.
Since Kennedy was leader there was some unity and integrity (well that's how it looked), then Mingo gave some credible lead but how they let Vince go I do not know. He was the one good thing to come out of this cave of backstabbing, vest wearing, bleeding heart nobodies. And what do they put in his place, a limpwristed peacock.
No wonder they are pissed at themselves, what a way to bury a party of ne'erdowells.
clegg talks about local democracy as he conspires to give away our sovereignty to a less democratically accountable body.
nick clegg is full of shit.
clegg has done a dirty deal with gordon to help brown force the EU constitution through parliament.
you are a fucking self serving cunt clegg.
and you are going to hell because you are a satanist. you are a dishonourable, untrustworthy dissembler who has placed the lib dem party's interests above the national interest.
that has very serious implications for your party nick, you fucking spastic.
and didn't you know gordon brown is a fucking JONAH! he is the kiss of death. he's just killed your political career stone dead. anyone who trusts brown deserves everything they get.
PA report
"Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has been rebuked for delays in declaring more than £14,000 in donations.
Mr Clegg did not notify the Electoral Commission of six cash gifts which he received between December 2006 and last November, according to the regulator's updated register.
It is the second time the MP has been named and shamed by the Commission in little over a week, after it emerged that he had forgotten to declare two other donations totalling £15,000 from December last year.
The latest records also show that Tory leader David Cameron has reported a non-cash gift of £7,285 from Viscount William Astor, which dates back to October 2005.
Politicians are obliged to inform the Commission of any donation valued at over £1,000 within 30 days of receipt.
Mr Clegg's latest errors concerned money from Ian Wright, Neil Sherlock and Michael Young, who each gave £1,750 on December 31 2006. The same three men handed over £2,750, £2,832.50 and £3,657.50 respectively on November 30 last year. Altogether £14,490 was declared late.
Mr Clegg's former leadership rival Chris Huhne - now the party's home affairs spokesman - came under fire for slow notification of two cash gifts totalling £7,400 which were received last November, during the contest for the top job.
Meanwhile, the new entries indicated that Boris Johnson's fundraising for his London Mayor bid is continuing apace. The Tory MP for Henley reported 23 donations worth £87,600, which were collected between January 18 and February 8.
Former Norwich Union chief executive Patrick Snowball, unveiled as an adviser to the Tories on financial policy this week, gave £11,000.
Mr Johnson has now raked in £339,000 in gifts since last September, according to the register."
Has McBroon declared all his donations, am still wondering if the FT story a few weeks ago about Broon's failure to complete paperwork has been forgotten?
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