Political sincerity

Tweet Nick Clegg’s response to the decision of his pary’s membership to contuinue to oppose airport expansion was certainly forthright.  Ultimately, it boils down to saying that because he didn’t get the answer he wanted, his party will have to continue discussing it until he does.  I’m not sure that he’d apply the same rule in other circumstances, such as a certain recent referendum.  In that case, I rather suspect that he’d argue that the decision, once taken, is final; but then poltiicians tend to like rules that only apply when they want them to.

I was particularly interested in the way he drew parallels with other party decisions, such as that on tuition fees.  This passage in particular made me wonder: “…how can I put it – I’ve seen the perils of the past of putting something which you know in your heart of hearts is not necessarily deliverable”. Is he, in effect, telling us that he knew the pledge was undeliverable when he made it? 

He solemnly signed that enormous card, and looked directly into camera and told us all that a vote for the Lib Dems was a vote against tuition fees, but he’s now telling us that he knew all along in his ‘heart of hearts’ that he could not and would not deliver it.  That comes as a bit of a shock even to an old cynic like me.  And given that he’s already telling us that he can’t and won’t deliver the Lib Dem pledge on airport expansion if he gets into government again, how can anyone believe anything that they put in their manifesto?