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Clegg could lose both his leadership and seat in UK election

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Though the office of deputy prime minister is relatively new in British politics, and though there have been stretches since 1945 when British governments haven’t even featured a deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg risks becoming the first sitting deputy prime minister to lose his constituency in the United Kingdom’s general election on Thursday.United Kingdom Flag Icon

Throughout the campaign, Clegg has struggled to take a clear polling lead in Sheffield Hallam in south Yorkshire. His party, the Liberal Democrats, are predicted to lose up to half of their 56 seats in the House of Commons, and Clegg’s surprisingly tough race means that his future as an MP is just as fragile as his future as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, which joined a formal coalition with the Conservatives following the May 2010 general election. In that campaign, Clegg stole the spotlight in the country’s televised leader’s debates against both current prime minister David Cameron and then-prime minister Gordon Brown.

This time around, Clegg has been forced into an awkward mix of defending his record in government while attacking Cameron’s Tories for going too far in cutting social services in the party’s zeal to reduce the country’s budget deficit. Clegg’s popularity collapsed early in the coalition, when he not only agreed to budget cuts in the midst of a recession, but particularly after he consented to an increase in tuition fees from around $3,000 to around $9,000, backtracking on what had been a key LibDem pledge in the 2010 election. A groveling apology to LibDem voters only made things worse for Clegg.

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RELATED: Why Clegg should step down as LibDem leader

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A Lord Ashcroft poll released April 29 showed Clegg losing to Labour’s Oliver Coppard by a 1% margin. A Guardian/ICM poll released May 4, however, indicates that Tory voters are voting tactically for Clegg in a bid to retain his seat. The Liberal Democrats have historically been somewhat left of center, most importantly opposing British participation in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in the 2000s and creeping civil liberties abuses by Labour. Clegg, with a market-friendly, traditional economically liberal perspective, is still seen as the most likely LibDem leader to bring his party into another coalition with the Conservatives after May 7.

In contrast, if Clegg loses his seat and the party is forced to choose a new leader quickly, the favorite would be the secretary of state for business, Vincent Cable, whose views on economic policy lie much closer to Labour’s than to the Conservatives.

Even as Clegg signals that Cameron’s promise of a 2017 referendum on British membership in the European Union need not be a deal-breaker for a coalition, he’s said that his party could partner with either major party, adding ‘a heart to a Conservative government and a brain to a Labour one.’  Continue reading Clegg could lose both his leadership and seat in UK election →

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Labour leads, as Clegg and the Lib Dems struggle during UK convention season

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As conference season gets underway in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party, under relatively new leader Ed Miliband, now leads the Conservative Party by a 41% to 31% advantage in the latest Guardian/ICM poll, with the Liberal Democrats trailing at 14%.

Labour, which performed generally better than expected in the last election in May 2010 (which was supposed to have been a complete landslide for the Tories), hold 254 seats in the House of Commons to 304 seats for the Tories and 57 seats for the Lib Dems.  Although the next election is not expected until 2015, and the current Tory-Lib Dem coalition shows no signs of fracturing, despite some strains, Labour would be set to return to government.  That’s the best poll performance for Labour since well before the era of former prime minister Gordon Brown.

The support comes largely from the drop in support for the Lib Dems, who won 22% in the 2010 election and have watched support crumble as the junior partner of UK prime minister David Cameron’s government.  Just last week, Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg (pictured above) recorded an apology for violating its 2010 pledge not to raise tuition fees — the Tory/Lib Dem coalition has voted to lift the cap on tuition fees to £9,000.

The move, which came in advance of this week’s annual Lib Dem conference, has dominated political discussion — Clegg’s video has even gone viral:

As we approach the expected 2015 election, if Lib Dem support remains subdued, the calls for a new leader will only become louder.  This week’s favorite is Vince Cable, who has been the business secretary in the coalition cabinet since 2010.  That’s perhaps ironic, given that Cable is just as pregnant with support for the central Tory program of budget cuts as Clegg.  Nonetheless, the Guardian/ICM poll showed that the Cable-led Lib Dems would increase their support to 19% from 14%.

Throughout the conference, Cable and Clegg have both emphasized that the Lib Dems will run in the next election as a separate party, not jointly with the Tories or in favor of any particular coalition.

All things considered, today’s polls are of limited utility nearly 30 months before the next election.  Furthermore, I still think — despite a strong performance by shadow chancellor Ed Balls and an increasingly sure footing for Ed Miliband — that the polls are a reflection less of Miliband’s stellar leadership than of the collapse of the Lib Dems under Clegg and the tepid reviews of Cameron’s Tories, given the austerity program that chancellor David Osborne is pushing forward with, even with the UK mired in a double-dip recession.  So there’s much time for the economy to turn around, and if so, Cameron and Clegg will both in better shape going into an election expected in 2015, and Miliband still seems like (and remains closer to) Neil Kinnock, the perennial loser of the 1980s and 1990s British politics than to Tony Blair, who delivered three consecutive Labour routs.

The left has savaged Clegg because he refused to apologize for the actual hike in tuition fees (and not just for breaking the pledge), but the more damning criticism is that by offering up such a mealy-mouthed apology and by refusing to stand up to the Tories on not just student fees, but the direction of the economy, Clegg sounds like just another politician.  Given that Clegg’s ascent into government came largely from his freshness and the appeal of a new approach to government (Cleggmania!), that is perhaps the most dangerous aspect for Clegg’s leadership.  Continue reading Labour leads, as Clegg and the Lib Dems struggle during UK convention season →