Saturday, April 10, 2010

Clegg and the battle of the "two-bit" parties

The Lib-Dems don't like it when a vote for them is dubbed as "wasted", so why is Nick Clegg demeaning Plaid Cymru and SNP voters?

Right when I was warming up again to the Lib-Dems in the run-up to the general election, here comes Nick Clegg's useless, gratuitous and arrogant swipe at both Plaid Cymru and the SNP.

Similarly to what he said last week about the Scottish Nationalists, on a visit to Cardiff the LibDem leader described Plaid Cymru as an "irrelevant, two-bit" party.

Yet, confirming that politicians are incapable of grasping irony, two seconds later Clegg slated those who routinely say the same about the Lib Dems.

For instance Lord Adonis, the Labour peer who yesterday urged LibDem voters to support Labour if they want a realistic chance of stopping the Conservatives -in line with twenty years of Labour or Tory politicians repeating that a vote to the LibDems is a "wasted" one and that "nobody cares about the Liberals".

What's that saying...treat others the same way you want them to treat you?

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2 comments:

PH said...

My LibDem local councillors have probably lost my vote partly as a result of starting every bloody letter and leaflet with "Don't vote for the Conservatives, they can't win here! Vote for us if you don't like Labour!" That and the sheer number of leaflets they shove through the door.

I *hate* negative voting. If everybody voted for the people they agree with rather than who they think might win, the outcome would be rather different.

Anita said...

I disagree.
I think the article is guilty of the same tabloid-style hyperbole that this blog so brilliantly condemns.

Clegg did not "demean" SNP and Plaid voters. He simply stated a fact: both the SNP and Plaid are irrelevant at Westminster level. Clegg didn't mean it "in general". How could he, given the weight they both carry (especially the SNP) in the national assemblies? It's a fact that if you want rid of Tory or Labour for the Westminster election your best bet is a vote for the Liberal Democrats.