Bangladesh life: Lying Nick Clegg is the whore of Westminster

by Tony Parsons, [Daily Mirror] 11/12/2010

NOT long after becoming President, Barack Obama was reminded that he had promised his daughters a dog once he was in the White House.

“Campaign promise,” said Obama, dismissing the promise of a dog with a wave of his hand.

And it was funny because the joke acknowledged the way that all politicians promise you one thing and then deliver something else.

Obama’s quip measured the gap between what politicians want to do and what they are capable of doing in the real world.

Politicians all say one thing and then do another. This is inevitable. They are caught between the way they would like the world to be and the way that it really is – a degree of hypocrisy comes with the job.

But what Nick Clegg has done is something else.

There is a difference between compromise and stinking hypocrisy. There is a difference between being a reluctant realist and a shameless liar.

Clegg has got it the wrong way round. He says that he would have kept his promise to abolish “unfair” tuition fees if the Lib Dems had won the general election.

But can’t he see the bloody obvious? One of the reasons he is in a Coalition government is precisely because of the promises he made when he was campaigning. Many voters thought you actually meant what you were saying, Nick!

Politicians are forced to manage the art of the possible. That is why, as a breed, they are so widely despised.

They are destined to disappoint because concessions, negotiations and compromise are what they do for a living.

But Nick Clegg is something else.

Never in the history of political hypocrisy has a party leader so brazenly said one thing and then done exactly the opposite.

That is not compromise. That is not the real world intruding on idealism. That is lying through your pearly whites.

That is whoring your principles, your party and your supporters for a photo opportunity in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street. That is selling all your party believes in down the river for the sake of a fleeting taste of power.

Home News Columnists Tony Parsons Lying Nick Clegg is the whore of Westminster
by Tony Parsons, Daily Mirror 11/12/2010

NOT long after becoming President, Barack Obama was reminded that he had promised his daughters a dog once he was in the White House.

“Campaign promise,” said Obama, dismissing the promise of a dog with a wave of his hand.

And it was funny because the joke acknowledged the way that all politicians promise you one thing and then deliver something else.

Obama’s quip measured the gap between what politicians want to do and what they are capable of doing in the real world.

Politicians all say one thing and then do another. This is inevitable. They are caught between the way they would like the world to be and the way that it really is – a degree of hypocrisy comes with the job.

But what Nick Clegg has done is something else.

There is a difference between compromise and stinking hypocrisy. There is a difference between being a reluctant realist and a shameless liar.

Clegg has got it the wrong way round. He says that he would have kept his promise to abolish “unfair” tuition fees if the Lib Dems had won the general election.

But can’t he see the bloody obvious? One of the reasons he is in a Coalition government is precisely because of the promises he made when he was campaigning. Many voters thought you actually meant what you were saying, Nick!

Politicians are forced to manage the art of the possible. That is why, as a breed, they are so widely despised.

They are destined to disappoint because concessions, negotiations and compromise are what they do for a living.

But Nick Clegg is something else.

Never in the history of political hypocrisy has a party leader so brazenly said one thing and then done exactly the opposite.

That is not compromise. That is not the real world intruding on idealism. That is lying through your pearly whites.

That is whoring your principles, your party and your supporters for a photo opportunity in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street. That is selling all your party believes in down the river for the sake of a fleeting taste of power.

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That is telling the electorate that campaign promises are just a con to get you to place your cross on the ballot paper.

The yawning abyss between Clegg’s words and deeds imply that our democracy is a sick joke, and that every politician in the land will promise you anything, and then hump you and dump you for a chauffeured limo and a good seat in the House of Commons.

It is difficult to see how the Lib Dems, let alone Nick Clegg, can ever recover from this betrayal of everything they pretended to believe in.

Some say that the student protests will change nothing. They are probably right.

But that does not mean that it is wrong to protest.

When I was a child, students rioted outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square, protesting against the war in Vietnam.

Did that stop one Vietnamese village from being burned by napalm? No.

When I was a young man, I was there with anti-Nazi protestors when the National Front goose-stepped through Lewisham.

Did that stop racism in this country? Unfortunately not.

The students on the streets of London are unlikely to change ConDem policy to annihilate social mobility in this country.

But that is no reason to curl up and die.

Many of those students will have believed Nick Clegg when he batted his eyelashes and promised to abolish unfair tuition fees.

Now he is holding David Cameron’s coat while he robs bright working class kids of their future.

It is impossible to see how this can be written off as mere political compromise. It is impossible to see how this can be forgiven or forgotten.

In the end Barack Obama’s daughters got their dog. But Nick Clegg has sold those students a pup.

They are right to be mad as hell.

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