Nick Clegg Promises

Just on the off-chance that anyone's still listening out there, Wee Nicky's latest appeal for re-admission to the human race includes a promise to reform the House of Lords, thus signalling that yet another plank of Deputy Conservative policy is to be torn up and fed to the worms. Wee Nicky's rhetoric was a disturbing mix of Hollywood slang and Brownite deadwood: "if you want change stuff, you sometimes have to take a risk and push stuff that might not be instantly popular," he proclaimed, like an expendable black character busy cutting cocaine with washing-up powder. "My kind of society is an open society and challenge vested interests whether they are in the media, the banking system or the political system," he proclaimed later on, apparently for the benefit of those who even now remain sceptical about the advantages of cuddling up to Lord Ashcroft's party. "It means social mobility and how we reorientate government policy to achieve the potential of young kids who are otherwise condemned by the circumstances of society," he proclaimed in addition, to clarify why he signed up to closing all those youth facilities and continuing child detention. Wee Nicky also criticised Labour for its lack of principle or consistency, which shows that the Brussels fiasco has not lessened his comic touch.

The Lords, it appears, is "a standing affront to everything a liberal democracy should be. It is nepotism and patronage rather than merit, it is closed rather than open. It hoards power", all of which no doubt explains why Wee Nicky thinks Lord Ashcroft's party are just the chaps to reform it. Wee Nicky mentioned the coalition agreement, which he was happy to tear up in order to grease Twizzler Lansley's anti-NHS bill through Parliament; then as now, presumably, the reason was that "if you are too purist you deliver nothing", in contrast to the spectacular successes which Wee Nicky and his chums have delivered with their bargain-basement approach.