Nick Clegg, you may have noticed, has come in for a bit stick recently. To dismiss it as just about tuition fees, or just about working with the Conservatives, is too simplistic. While his decisions on both these issues undoubtedly made him unpopular with large parts of the electorate, in my opinion the ‘Cleggophobia’ goes a lot deeper. It is even more than being about building someone up, as was done after that famous 1st debate, in order to bring them back down. No, ‘Clegg bashing’ has now become a self-perpetuating vicious cycle, created, indulged and encouraged by our beloved mainstream media.
I do not want to use this post to once again to debate the merits, or otherwise, of decisions Nick Clegg has taken. I have made it clear elsewhere that I believe many of those decision to be good, and others to be wrong and/or disappointing. Pretty standard in politics really. The issue for me is the increasingly unpolitical, personalised, vilification of Clegg that has just casually sauntered in and placed itself in our popular culture.
Take this weekend’s episode of the Graham Norton Show for instance. In his opening monologue, Norton discussed Obama’s visit to the UK, building up to the punchline “It seems though any idiot can meet the President these days.” Cut to a picture of Clegg and Obama sharing a joke, while Norton laughs very proudly at himself. The joke just slipped out. It was lapped up, unquestioned by the audience of a Friday night talk show that has nothing to do with politics, save for the appearance of the West Wing’s swoonsome Rob Lowe. That’s also ignoring the fact that, as is so often pointed out, Nick Clegg is Oxbridge educated, and far form an idiot!
The Graham Norton incident really stuck out to me, but it is hardly a 1 off. For example, Times columnist Matthew Parris(£) was “dumbstruck by the casual hostility to Mr Clegg” when he appeared recently on Radio 4′s News Quiz. On Sunday morning I turned on Radio 5Live to hear Nick Hancock drop some wisecrack about Nick Clegg. Then there’s Sally Bercow, Ann Treneman and other’s patronising reference to ‘Cleggie’ in their tweets. In fact, during the Obama visit you couldn’t navigate around twitter for all haggard hacks gleefully pointing out how useless, uninvolved, or unimportant Nick Clegg supposedly is.
Of course, Gordon Brown came in for a personal hard time whilst Prime Minister, which isn’t right either. However, Even at its worse I don’t remember an acceptance of an undercurrent of bile being directed at Brown in quite the same way. Perhaps it is because I was less personally bothered by it, but I don’t think so. There may have been that rather vile story about supposed use of anti-depressants for instance, but the media just didn’t embed the notion into mainstream culture with Brown as has been done with Clegg.
The point has been made eloquently by Olly Grender in the New Statesman, and by Matthew Parris in the aforementioned article, that the success of the coalition government, the Liberal Demcorats, and indeed the country, is not solely down to Nick Clegg. They’re right. The very definition of pluralist politics makes this so. For the media to be pretending otherwise is totally misleading.
Most importantly, what does this personal vilification actually do for our politics? What do the public gain by have a media-anointed pantomime villain? Nothing. Just increased apathy, dislike, and distrust of politics and politicians. The net effect of this just sets back on a path right back towards the status quo that, whisper it, Nick Clegg has spent an entire political career trying to break, and, surprise, surprise, rather suits those in the media taking cheap shots at him.
You don’t have to agree with everything, or indeed anything, Nick Clegg says, but surely it’s to all our benefit that he gets a fair hearing?
June 1, 2011 at 9:19 am
Hi Charlotte, I’m as much a fan of Clegg as I know you are but I honestly think all this is just a normal part of high politics. Brown got absolutely excoriated too, as you say, and I remember clearly how harsh it was (even if I was part of it!) and this tradition goes back to Owen/Steel in the 80s and before. I think for a country like Britain where either humour or aggression are the two default settings, it makes sense that satire is our natural social currency. I’m writing this post while watching HIGNFY, and they are indeed going to town on Nick Clegg, but I don’t think he is being unfairly singled out, and I’m sure he wouldn’t either.
I would also say that just because there is opprobrium being levelled towards him doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t being given a fair hearing. There may be many people, just as with Brown, who admire him all the more for the stick he is taking, and also just because people are having a go doesn’t mean they don’t also respect him and won’t support him when the time comes. As I said, humour is pretty much our default setting. Good to see someone fighting Clegg’s corner though, keep up the good work!
June 1, 2011 at 1:15 pm
I dislike that it could be a part of ‘normal high politics’ anyway, but I think the way it has slipped into the mainstream, as cited in the post, is different to anything I have know.
June 1, 2011 at 12:30 pm
“Of course, Gordon Brown came in for a personal hard time whilst Prime Minister.”
Actually, quite a lot, Charlotte. And in the 1990s John Major was treated pretty-much as a pitiful buffoon for the last half of his time as Prime Ministersh (so for about four years). The vitriol that was directed at Margaret Thatcher makes the media’s handling of Nick look positively cloying.
I think that this is all sadly typicial. The problem today is that Nick is (to quote his close friend and ally, Norman Lamb) acting as a human shield for David Cameron. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the coalition, it is Clegg getting all the flak leaving Cameron untouched.
June 1, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Yes, and I am not trying to diminish or justify that. However, I do not know/recollect that the antagonism slipped into the mainstream conscious in quite the same way in any of the examples you name.
June 30, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I think it silly to claim that this is just a recent phenomenon involving Clegg himself. After all, Gordon Brown was famously described by a comedian as looking like “a scrotum with a frowny face drawn on it”.
The country is in hard times and in hard times the blame falls on the leaders, whether justified or not. In this case, the hard times are being caused by a package of cuts that Nick Clegg vociferously opposed in his election campaign and then wholeheartedly endorsed after entering coalition. Yes, doubtless you’ve heard these lines before, and I’m not trying to win you over to any particular ideology by reminding you of them, but you have to understand that people are justifiably angry about this. Cameron did at least admit that his plan for government included heavy cuts in a bid to eliminate the deficit over the course of one parliament. Clegg did not, and he is seen as the person who is mainly responsible for facilitating Cameron’s cuts program, as the Tories didn’t win an overall majority. If there’s more vitriol directed towards him as a result of this, then… well, frankly it’s understandable on some level.