So Nick Clegg is to receive his Knighthood

As honours go he fully merits it both as Deputy PM, his Parliamentary contribution and as a hard working constituency MP.

However I prefer to link the honour being fully justified in recognition of the outstanding work he’s doing in alerting the country of the dangers of Brexit.

Ever since it has been publicised that Nick Clegg is likely to receive a knighthood in the New Year Honours list the social media and  not just one or two of the tabloid papers have gone into overdrive as to the merits or otherwise of the pending award.

The difficulty for the Liberal Democrats is that it has reopened the arguments and divisions as to whether or not the party should have gone into Coalition with the Tories in 2010.

  

Labour Party contributors are rather scathing in their comments but there is also a difference of opinion among Liberal Democrats.

Here is a flavour:

One view is,

‘’It is right that Nick Clegg gets a knighthood for political service to this country. He put the country before party, by taking the Lib Dems into Coalition. He might have made political mistakes, but he helped to get this country back on an even economic keel’’.

But there is a differing opinion

‘’I gather Nick Clegg is getting a knighthood off this dreadful Tory government. For services to...the Conservative Party. Well, after all, he was largely responsible for very nearly killing off the Lib Dems.  So, from a Tory perspective, he was very successful I guess.’’

I do not propose to continue that debate here. My views on the Coalition years and the misjudgments that occurred and why, were made clear in a post September 15 2015 on this blog.

During the ongoing social media disagreements some highlight the achievements of the Lib Dems as part of the Coalition – being able to fulfill over 65% of the party’s 2010 manifesto promises.

Measures such as - 

Pupil Premium so that primary school children who need extra help can get it, free school meals for primary kids, more free childcare for under 2s than ever before, more apprenticeship places for 16-18 year olds, taking 3 million low earners and part time workers out of income tax completely and putting over £800 back into the pockets of over 26 million workers, the highest ever increase in the basic state pension (twice), starting the clampdown on tax avoidance by the most wealthy individuals in the country and introducing the Banking Reform Act to stop casino banking

Whilst others who were, and still are, critical of the Lib Dems supporting the Tories for five years claim that the party was complicit in the introduction of a range of measures that harmed individuals, groups of people and communities including of course the tripling of tuition fees, the bedroom tax, privatisation of NHS services with the Health and Social Care Act, capping of benefits, the Austerity agenda, public service cutbacks and in effect a pay freeze for public sector workers.

That debate possibly could carry on for some time yet by people on both sides of the coalition divide until one day it will run out of the body politic system.  My belief however is that the significance and serious consequences of Brexit will overwhelm all before it in 2018 

However what I want to concentrate on here is the importance of the third force (whether Lib Dems, SNP or Plaid Cymru) or indeed any other grouping of MPs, making sure they strike the right agreement with the majority party that is seeking their support in order to be able to form a government.

Policies come and go and can be over turned as do governments and Parliaments but what is permanent is the basis on how the country is governed and the fairness of the electoral system.

In 2010 the Liberal Democrats had a golden opportunity to transform the governance of the United Kingdom by insisting on the delivery of fundamental reforms with an elected second chamber and a new voting system.

By this I mean not acquiescing and being satisfied with the promise of a referendum on AV and the introduction of a bill to reform the House of Lords.

Red lines should have been established by Nick Clegg and the party so that any and failure by the Conservatives to deliver the essential reform on both counts by 2013 would have meant the end of the Coalition.

It is on the issue of reforming the foundations of power, democracy and patronage that I find serious fault with the party’s approach to the Coalition agreement.

A golden opportunity appeared and we were found wanting.

It’s a lesson for any future coalition deal with either Labour or Conservatives and the smaller parties. Ultimately it’s all about power, the authority of the establishment and the governance of the country.

I daresay another opportunity will appear before long, certainly within the next few years.  So the smaller parties have to be clear in what they want to achieve on the reforming agenda, be determined and resolute in their demands and not be side-tracked otherwise else it will remain as always the same old, same old.