Recently the Tories took a bit of a byelection hit at Amersham. A big swing to the Liberal Democrats saw this once solid Tory seat fall to the Lib Dems. This follows on from previous large gains by the Lib Dems on the local council.
Although there are specific local issues such as planning, unwanted extra housebuilding and HS3 in the Amersham area that saw the voters turn against the Tories, that doesn’t mean that the Lib Dems are not a possible threat to some Tory seats in the South. It’s likely that the politically flexible, or rather Janus faced, Lib Dems will reinvent themselves and target those seats in the South that still have lots of Remain sentiment who have turned against the Tories. It is in these seats where wealthy people with Remain views may not want to vote Tory but also cannot bring themselves to vote for the socialist hell-scape that Labour have become.
The Tories need to counter the possible Lib Dem threat in certain Southern seats and the writer Patrick Sullivan claims to have found a way to do that which could be quite effective.
Mr Sullivan believes that the best weapon that can be used against the Lib Dems is Sir Nick Clegg the former leader of the Lib Dems. He said that the Tories should point to how Sir Nick was rejected by the voters from 2015 onwards and that in his new position as Facebook’s Vice-President of Global Affairs and Communications this rejected politician now holds more power than he ever did as an elected MP or party leader.
What Mr Sullivan said is that the fight against the Lib Dems requires a comic book style super villain, or in the case of Clegg a supervillain’s sidekick, who can become a millstone around the necks of the Lib Dems. Mr Sullivan believes that Sir Nick Clegg can be that millstone and to be seen as someone who is working exclusively for the superyacht elite.
Mr Sullivan said:
As it so happens, there is a comic book style villain readily available to play this role – Facebook founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. Indeed, Jesse Eisenberg, the actor who played Mr. Zuckerberg in the 2010 film The Social Network, actually appeared as super-villain Lex Luthor in 2016’s Batman vs Superman. The reason he was chosen for that role is because many consider Mark Zuckerberg to be a real-life Lex Luthor. As anyone who has read comic books knows, all super villains must have an even more grotesque sidekick. We know live in such a “Bizarro World” that the new arbiter of truth is the man who has had the loosest relationship with the truth in the last half-century of British politics, Sir. Nick Clegg. This is a man who became Britain’s deputy prime minister primarily on the back of parliamentary seats won through a pledge to scrap tuition fees who almost immediately upon taking office did the dirty on the ones that elected him by getting his party to vote for a historic rise in tuition fees.
Sir. Nick Clegg is a man the British public rejected resoundingly in 2015 and his own constituency humiliatingly rejected him in 2017. This is a man who the British people thought should not have any power or influence. Therefore, it is absolutely perverse that Sir Nick has much more power now as Vice-President of Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook than he ever did as an empty suit of a deputy prime minister.
It’s quite possible that Mr Sullivan is correct. People are getting more and more concerned about the adverse influence of Big Tech and having the Tories position themselves as opponents of them would be electorally advantageous. It would also tie the Lib Dems via their former leader to the censorious tyrants of Big Tech.
Mr Sullivan’s article is well worth reading in full and you can find it via the link below.
https://patricksullivan.uk/dispatches/f/illiberal-antidemocrats–for-big-tech-the-superyacht-elite
Clegg’s attitude to the Brexit result fixed him as a contemptible little man in my eyes. He pretty much came out and said that it was a huge mistake to allow such decisions to be made by the proles and that these things we should leave to our betters to decide for us. He then went off and collaborated with various other remainer types to try and prevent Brexit from happening.
On the other hand, he is no longer involved with the Lib Dem party so I’m not sure that he can be much of a liability to them now. I do find it interesting that the name Liberal Democrat Party is the exact opposite of what they actually are, in the best tradition of Orwellian socialist double speak.
Without a doubt your use of the word contemptible is very apt for Clegg.
He might not be directly involved with the Lib Dems but he was their most high profile leader in decades, when people think of Clegg they don’t think ‘Facebook’ they think ‘Lib Dems’. He’s also still interfering with and being involved in British politics by way of his current position such as his alleged interference with the appointment of a new Ofcom head. Linking Clegg, the Big Tech censors and the Lib Dems could be a good strategy. If nothing else it may shine a light on the policies of the Lib Dems which are all too often the very opposite of ones that are genuinely liberal or democratic.