Clegg: "It's been a tedious, uneventful week in Westminster"

If you thought that Nick Clegg might be reflective, even contrite, about the Liberal Democrats' difficult week and loss from the Shadow Cabinet of three colleagues, then you would be wrong.

He arrived in Liverpool for the party's spring conference insisting that he has captured the moral high ground. In his welcome speech to journalists, he began by saying that it had been a "tedious, uneventful" week in Westminster. Then he responded irritably to questions about whether he should have done things differently. Mistake.

Unlike the rest of the party, who seem quite relaxed about what happened, Team Clegg are intensely annoyed with the media for their reporting of the party's splits this week. They made a formal complaint to the BBC and today Clegg had a one-on-one with Helen Boaden, the corporation's head of news. He even assailed me for a Times leading article this morning that he described as "pious".

There is much more rough and tumble to come, particularly if he fulfils his promise to try to shake up Westminster. But his own colleagues agree what part of the current problem is: he needs to get a thicker skin.

Comments

[M. Cawdery]

Unless of course you check the following:
From Http://www.thelabourparty.org
Trouble Makers

Post by I Love G on Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:00 pm
You know, some guy at work came up to me today and told me the following:

"Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600
employees and has the following statistics?

29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
4 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Which organization is this?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line."

SURELY THEY NEED THE ID CARDS WITH THEIR RECORDS MORE THAN THE AIRPORT WORKERS?

[Alex Foster]

Except that those figures simply aren't true - see Phil Cowley on Comment is Free: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/philip_cowley/2006/03/mps_in_corruption_shocker.html

[John Wood]

The figures relate to the House of Representatives here in the USA, and are for 2005-6. How much better they are in UK is a matter of conjecture, and indiffference, to most of us. If only ANY of them could do a proper job of running the country then we would all be a good deal happier.