Smart Engagement

Yesterday Daveybloke's orange muffler responded to some particularly vicious Barnsley exit polls by delivering himself of a speech pointing out that the Liberal Democrats are actually not the same as the Conservatives, and that Nicky himself has actual differences from Daveybloke which stem from Nicky's liberal philosophy, actually. "Where multiculturalism is held to mean more segregation, other communities leading parallel lives, it is clearly wrong"; which explains Nicky's almost vocal opposition to faith schools. Nicky also proclaimed that the Government must learn to distinguish between violent extremism of the nasty terrorist kind, and non-violent extremism of "deeply unpalatable, illiberal views", such as the idea that benefits claimants' poverty is a lifestyle choice, or that public health is something for general practitioners and Turkey Twizzler manufacturers to work out between themselves, or that elderly people who can't afford to live in the city can make do without a post office, or that libraries should be closed to help the rich with their gambling debts, or that tearing up electoral pledges once in office is the sign of a new and healthy democracy, or that imprisoning children is fine as long as you call it something else. "We don't win people to liberal ideals by giving ourselves a leave of absence from the argument," said Nicky. Well, of course we don't. We win people to liberal ideas by hitching ourselves to a right-wing bandwagon and helping to remove the brakes.

Me at Poetry-24
Dear Rupert