Leadership Case

To Buy or Not to Buy?

As record numbers of Liberal Democrats delegates gather for the party conference in Liverpool. I began to reflect on the leadership of Nick Clegg and the future of the party as the recent Guardian Poll (August 20, 2010) suggest the party's position is down to 15% in some cases 13% .Their worst since the election in May. Will the party loyalist buy his stance in the coalition deal? One might wonder if his warning to his party the night before the conference that ‘things will never be the same again' meant a change in the right direction for the party or a change for him and the other 22 Government ministers in the current coalition government.

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Like the boom and the burst, could the impact on the Liberal Democrat as a part of the coalition governement be the rise and fall of the party? One of the many challenges Nick Clegg faces during the conference as the leader of the Liberal Democrat and as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Coalition Government is the ability to address those in his party who are already suffering from the buyers' remorse. They will need reminding why the party made the choice they did in May, with the main concerns being issues such as Deficit Reduction, Immigration and Political Reform.

While the philosophical concept of an electoral mandate is very hazy, there were many who voted Lib Dem expressly to keep the Tories out and unless Mr. Clegg stops cuts, he faces a revolt next year. There are also many party activists grumbling on the offering of a referendum on AV, (what is AV) which they believe is not proportional or even fair. Above all, he needs to prove he has not been absorbed into the Tory Party mentality, like one of the ordinary people swallowed up by the ‘Cybermen in Dr Who'. Although he has won a few concessions and put the brakes on wilder Tory policies but many still believe Mr. Clegg has yet to show that he is no Tory puppet.

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In his acceptance speech on the 18th of December 2007, Mr. Clegg said he wanted his leadership to be about "ambition and change", saying "we want to change politics and change Britain". Three years on, he formed a coalition government by getting into bed with their old foe "the Conservatives", sure that is a historic and radical move to form Britain's first coalition government since 1945. During his campaign for the prime ministerial role, he made clear if there was a hung parliament he will support the majority party to form the government. Very few expected him to keep to his word, if it meant a coalition with the Tories, alas, ‘he walked the talk'.

In the Dilemmas of Leadership, Richard & Clark provide a more theoritical explanation on Mr Clegg's leadership style, suggesting that changes in