Monday 7 January 2008

Nick Clegg - A True Lib Dem

I've been terribly excited reading an interview with new Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

I just wanted to share a quote with you:
"I became a liberal not in a library, but over the dinner table, in the car, in the park, in conversation with my mum,"

If anyone can throw some light on the meaning of this, I'll be awfy interested to hear it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Presumably that his politics are the result of instinct and experience, as opposed to academic study?

Calum Cashley said...

Maybe, but what's he got against libraries (or academic study if your reading of it is right)?

The other thing is that these places are generally private - the dinner table, the car and conversations with his mum - so if you're right he's got a narrow hinterland which isn't good.

The exception is the park where he might have interacted with more than a couple of people, but there's no guarantee. There's no indication that he ever engages with anyone - he's not fighting poverty that he's seen, he's not campaigning against nuclear weapons as thousands of people did in a march he was on, he's not determined to improve health provision because he's seen how poor it is - he's a liberal because his mum told him.

Visionaries - we're surrounded by them...