Briiinnnggg! Nick Clegg yesterday reached out to something that he calls Alarm Clock Britain. It seemed a strange thing to do. I regret to say that, unlike almost everyone else in the country on a Sunday, he did not hit the snooze button.
It was a grey and rainy day in Sheffield. Inside City Hall, Nick was bestriding the stage in his best David Cameron walkabout impression. He seemed utterly at home. He was here to woo his party back. Forget the snooze button, this was the schmooze button.
He knew there had been “some criticism”, which is one way of putting it, but he told us about one delegate who had welcomed him back, saying: “I thought we’d lost you when you walked through that door of No 10.” Nick glowed. I could see how much he loved saying the words “No 10”.
Now he added, superfluously: “I want to reassure you, David Cameron hasn’t kidnapped me. Although I gather some people were planning to this weekend.” That would be the students. Nick looked immensely happy at the idea of being important enough to be kidnapped.
“My life may have changed a fair bit since the last election,” he said. “But I haven’t changed one bit!”
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Then he looked down, ruefully, at his new round little tummy. No, not pregnancy (even for a Lib-Dem that would be hard). This was a power tummy from power breakfasts, lunches and dinners. “Maybe,” he noted, “I should get a personal trainer like David and Samantha but I have 5,000 protesters to chase me through the streets of Sheffield!”
He loved his tummy and he loved being important enough to chase. The packed hall — briinggg! — was waking up now and loving him back. They may hate the policies but it was clear that they loved everything to do with power, even the tummy.
Nick told them that the Lib Dems would never lose their soul. Whose side were they on? “We’re on the side of people I call Alarm Clock Britain.” What does it mean? It was people who want to “get up and get on”.
People who had to work (what world does he live in?). People who are only one pay cheque from their overdraft. I could go on (he did) but I think you get the idea.
“These are the people liberals have always fought for,” he announced. Lloyd George had fought for them in the People’s Budget. Keynes had fought for them. And so had Beveridge.
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“They may not have called it Alarm Clock Britain,” said Nick (and there would be a reason for that). “But they had the same people in mind.”
The people in the hall were the “true radicals” of British politics. “We are liberals,” he insisted (what happened to the democrats?). “We are governing from the middle, for the middle.”
I could not help but look at his new tummy. Can you govern from and for the spreading middle? I don’t see why not. Surely the message of yesterday is that, if you’re Nick Clegg, you can get away with almost anything. Brriiiinnggg! The Lib Dems are waking up and smelling the power.