It’s really remarkable when you can find a modern political party anywhere in the world more tone-deaf than the Republican Party. But there is one in the United Kingdom:
Nick Clegg is to launch an ‘aggressive’ defence of the European Union in a direct challenge to the rise of the UK Independence Party. The Liberal Democrat leader will use his New Year message next week to pitch his party as the only one ‘fully committed’ to Britain remaining in the EU. He will argue that with a tide of Eurosceptism engulfing the Tories and Labour wavering about even promising a referendum, only the Lib Dems will make the case as the ‘party of in’.
The Liberal Democrats have long been a joke. And while Clegg is a confirmed Europhile, this strategy strikes me as so stupid that it must be a purely cynical grab for cash from the European Commission. It won’t win the Lib Dems any votes, but it will guarantee Clegg a handsome payday and a cushy post-political retirement.
It tends to remind one of the squatty demon in Spawn, watching the teenage devil-worshippers and lamenting the way in which their followers tended to be morons.