Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Clegg Advisor: ID Cards Don't Matter to Voters

Sam Coates has analysed Nick Clegg's performance today at PMQs HERE. I didn't see PMWs today but I am told he was competent. What I found interesting was Sam's penultimate sentence...
Lib Dem strategists said afterwards his choice showed that Clegg not Cameron had
focused on an issue which they really mattered to voters.

Er, Cameron asked about ID Cards. Seeing as ID cards has been one of Clegg's main campaigns, shurely shome mishtake... Perhaps our LibDem friends might like to clarify matters.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Until I read a quote of what exactly this person said, and a full identification of who he is, I won't be drawn. I remember being in the library when I was a student, perusing The Times, and my lecturer came up to me and said "The Times? That's a 2:2 paper, that is". I thought about it and realised he had a point, actually. So I don't yet accept that the Clegg team said anything of the sort. (Though they may have done so, and if they did I concede that they were wrong).

Cameron and Davis deserve some credit for being against ID cards, but we're still the real deal. Clegg's question was about winter fuel allowance, as you probably know. Which will be concerning a lot of people.

Anonymous said...

ID cards are a Westminster village issue, something that only the politically-active get excited about.

But if you can't afford to heat your flat and are sitting shivering - in 21st century Britain - wrapped in layers of clothes, you'd probably be in favour of ID cards, if only to put the abundant paperwork that you'll have to complete before getting a card on the fire.

Clegg showed he cared for elderly voters, Cameron was playing party politics.

Anonymous said...

ID cards are actually pretty popular?

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps our LibDem friends might like to clarify matters."

Sam Coates is talking out of his arse? Clue: "Lib Dem strategists" - no names then?

BrianSJ said...

Anon at 7:24 has a good point. I think Cameron has got suckered into a no-win routine. He knows GB is just going to repeat the same mantras and not ask questions, so just telling him he isn't fit to be PM doesn't really get anywhere. Cable showed the power of ridicule over anger. DC needs a new tack. Digging into each others' past suits GB and not DC. Clegg did better than ok, and the topic was a good one.

Jonny Wright said...

Anonymous 7.24 has a point, you know. As a Lib Dem, I get very worked up about ID cards, as do most of my Conservative friends. But very often we find it extremely difficult when we're trying to get people worked up about the issue. I think after the lost discs scandal, more voters are starting to wake up to the fact that ID cards are a very bad idea and could put them at serious risk, so it's becoming a much easier case to make. It's an unfortunate and frustrating fact, though, that civil liberties campaigners often find their arguments treated as a high-minded but irrelevant bit of academic trivia compared to the "bread and butter issues." In that sense, an issue like fuel poverty is probably a more profitable area for a third party leader looking to find a bit of public resonance on his début.

Having said that, there's a big difference between admitting that ID cards aren't the best topic for a leader's first PMQs, and suggesting that they're somehow a secondary issue. The phrase "Clegg not Cameron had
focused on an issue which ... really mattered to voters" sounds like a bit of political rhetoric for public consumption. If a Lib Dem insider said those words, in that way, intending for them to be published, they're both wrong and incredibly stupid.

K S Rees said...

ID Cards is something which gets a lot of press and has cropped up time and time again at PMQs. I think Clegg was aiming to ask questions which a) would affect a lot of people and b) wouldn't crop up in the Cameron's questions. It seems to me his main strategy at the moment is to highlight his differences from Cameron, which is quite important considering just how similar they, at least superficially, appear.

A Swansea Blog

Chris Paul said...

Cameron just thrashed about yahbooing. He went OTT. But he had mopped up quite a few issues. Clegg asked a safe enough question in a bit of a dog whistle area that the govt have done reasonably well with - winter fuel allowances - with the extra issue of current fuel hikes.

Brown did pretty well throughout IMO. ID cards with no compulsion for UK citizens - a moderately likely outcome - is not the hot potato outside a few chatterers than we chatterers would like to think. Which is just as well.

Anonymous said...

ID cards are certainly an issue in Worcester if the varied letters in the local newspaper and subsequent comments on its website is anything to go by.