Clegg’s first year: Clegg on Clegg | Tall on Clegg
Well, it has been a year. I’m sure its felt even longer to you Nick. Take some time over the holidays and quietly reflect. I know you’re busy, so let me help you:
The good bits
1. You have had a good year. Sure the odd slip-up, but no leader is ever surefooted straightaway. You’ve had the odd ‘baseball cap’ moment, but public recognition is increasing and I think they like what they see. Try to get angry more often though. After all, you are only human. Let people see it.
2. You have a new Party President, Baroness Ros Scott. I didn’t vote for her, but it’s an opportunity to reach out to alienated and ignored parts of the party that you simply don’t have the time to reach. I think she’s someone you can work closely with.
3. 19% in the latest ICM poll. That’s about as good as it gets between elections.
4. Whatever you may (or may not) think, you have a good team. Cameron would kill for your frontbench team. So, I suspect, would Gordon. If only parties had transfer fees like footballers. Think what we could get for Vince!
5. You perform well in the media. You are relaxed and in control, where Cameron just looks manic.
The bad bits
1. All political parties are having a rough time, but you need to take charge of ours. The strategy we have pursued over the past 15 years looks more and more like a scorched earth policy for local parties. Membership cannot be allowed to decline any further and we must stop bleeding local parties to death for the sake of strange ‘targeting’ strategies, which owe more to egos than demographic or psephological analysis.
2. Tell it like it is for the Lisbon Treaty.
3. You need to pay more attention to activists and campaigners, and less to staff. Promote ALDC. It’s the thousands of councillors who are backbone of the party, not MPs and staffers.
4. Try to visit a few small local parties, not just the target seats – see what they think and listen to them. Do the Maths; if you want to be PM we need 330 MPs. Got 330 fully functioning local parties? Doubt it!
5. Get on top of the little things. I’ve won some elections this year; taken seats off the Tories. It would take 30 seconds for someone in your office to send an email every week to candidates and agents thanking and congratulating them. Even in May it would not be a monumental task, with ALDC’s help. Let the ordinary members know that you know it’s their party too.
You’ve done well. You are proving to be a good leader. I think you can be a great one. Hey – I voted for you!
* Martin Land is a Cambridgeshire Lib Dem activist and campaigner and blogs at New Model Army.
