Letter To Nick Clegg

The following is a letter that I wrote on the 12th May 2010 and sent to Nick Clegg c/o Lib Dem Party HQ:

12 May 2010
Nick Clegg
Deputy Prime Minister
4 Cowley Street
London
SW1P 3NB

Dear Mr Clegg,
I awoke today to find myself living in a nation where political beliefs have become a bargaining tool. They can be twisted, manipulated and forgotten entirely to suit those who seek power, as you yourself have proved over the last few days.

My political nature is progressive. My classical views range from ‘merely liberal’ (a phrase you ought to get used to under the whip of David Cameron) to socialist, to down right communist when the mood takes me. What's more, I vote in a constituency more blue than a blue veined, blue spotted very blue thing with added blue bits on it. In this constituency, the main rivals to the Conservatives, are your own party (or the party you now share ownership of with Mr Cameron - or has he given you to Sam Cam as a gift?) and so I voted for you. You may now consider this vote rescinded. You didn't win there anyway.

I will never be a Tory. As long as blood pumps through my body, for as long as the sun reaches the horizon each night and appears again the next day, I will not be BLUE! And yet, I find that my support of you, the praise I heaped on you after those debates, has, in admittedly small way, led to a Conservative majority with a progressive party as its pawn. How do you think that makes me feel?

Ok, so you got some concessions. A vote on the future manner of voting is something that I'm in favour of, and I welcome it. And stopping some of the Conservatives' more ridiculous cuts in public spending is welcomed too, but you could have stopped the whole lot as part of a majority opposition! But you are too much a coward for this You may argue that a stable government is good for the economy, but with George Osbourne as chancellor!? My only hope is that Vince Cable will show more backbone than you.

You settled for this just so that you could sit next to David Cameron, nod and smile like his pet, as he reintroduces fox hunting? Or when he proposes a new arsenal of weapons? Or the dropping of the human rights act? Or when he wants to leave the European Union? Will you clap and cheer for him on these fundamental issues, issues in the past so vitally important to you (apparently) and your party, though he need not even look in your direction?

Still, I must congratulate you on becoming Deputy Prime Minister. You are now allied to party favoured by, among others, Rupert Murdoch, Lord Ashcroft, Robert Mugabe, The Latvian Nazi Party, Polish Homophobes and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you are happy cuddling up to such bedfellows, and as long as you get that nice seat next to Dave in the middle of the house, you should be very happy.

However, as you have begun this new administration on a sour note, I feel it only right that I should end this letter on one. I now have no protest vote in my constituency. Even if your referendum works out. For I will never vote Liberal again. Your shabby little grab for a morsel of power, betraying your ethics and the ideals of those who have followed you, have forever soured me against you and your yellow bird. Never has a political party had more apt a colour of identity.

Just remember though; Governing parties only lose popularity, and you are now allied with your closest rivals in many marginal constituencies. Their voters have long memories of glory days and they will mobilise more than we socialists and liberals will to get rid of you. When they heal, they will drop their crutch and your alliance will seem as though a bad dream to them, as you crawl, head down, in smaller numbers still back to your seats in opposition. I only hope that they are on the same side of the house too.

Yours, in pity, regret and disgust,
John R. Ashton M.A. (signed).