Uk politics

If this morning's papers are anything to go by, Nick Clegg is in freefall. The man who was the Lib Dems' biggest electoral asset is now a magnet for all sorts of political digruntlement. Exhibit A: the Ipsos MORI poll (£) in today's News of the World, where 61 percent of respondents say that they don't trust Clegg, compared to 24 percent in April. He has gone from being "the most trusted politician since Churchill," to one of the least since ... well, ever. It is no small irony that the leader who sailed most capably on the winds of "change" and "new politics" in the TV debates has, whether rightly or wrongly, delivered this Parliament's most stunning example of a broken pledge – and is suffering the fallout from it.

As with so many things, the coalition’s great strength is also its great weakness. On the one hand, it is two parties working together, politicians putting aside their differences to cooperate in the national interest. This is something that, broadly speaking, the electorate likes. On the other, it is a government that nobody voted for. There’s a danger that the public come to see coalition as an arrangement that just allows both parties to worm out of their manifesto commitments on the grounds that they didn’t win the election.  The coalition’s national interest case is a strong one. But it needs to be made with greater frequency. It cannot be allowed to go the way as the summer of scrutiny of Labour’s record.

One of the things I heard yesterday when I strolled around the edges of the protests, particularly from older people, was how the coalition's policies had politicised Britain’s young. “It has really made my children wake up”, said an elderly bystander with a wistful look in his eyes.  Student leaders say they now hope to punish Lib Dems who voted for the tuition fees, targeting MPs in seats such as Bath, Burnley, Bradford East, Bristol West and Brent Central.   The sense of rage directed against the Liberal Democrats comes, I suspect, from a deeper sense of betrayal - and not simply student dissatisfaction over today’s issue.

When The Speaker called a division, the Labour side roared a passionate No while the coalition benches delivered a rather muted Aye. I did not see a single Lib Dem open their mouth at this point. Instead, they sat on their benches looking emotionally exhausted. Even those Lib Dems who have been proved right in their warning about the party’s position on fees—notably, David Laws and Jeremy Browne—appeared downcast.   In the end, the government won but with a much reduced majority. 21 Lib Dems voted against the coalition, as did six Tories. Simon Hughes abstained despite Ed Miliband’s entreaties to come with him into the no lobby.   This meant that the Lib Dem’s three senior figures split three ways.