Nick Clegg needs an occasional kick up the backside...

Ooh, it's all kicking off at Liberal Democrat Voice today as two daily editors, Paul Walter and Nick Thornsby debate the Coalition, the reshuffle and Nick Clegg's leadership. Paul argues that he can't support the Coalition or Nick Clegg's leadership any more because of David Laws' renewed high profile role and the Tories' promotion of Hunt and elevation of the notorious Lord Ashcroft to the Privy Council. 

I've made a comment there that I thought was worth re-posting here. Do come and join in the debate. 

Here's what I think about Nick and his leadership:

Ok, I’m going to stick my oar in and say that I am 100% behind Nick’s leadership.

That’s not to say that I think his performance has been flawless. Mistakes have been made that could and should have been avoided and he needs to make the effort to re-connect with his party’s activists. I had my own moment of fury on the reshuffle – I am severely unimpressed that our white, middle class, male, privileged team decided just to hand the equalities brief, from which Lynne Featherstone was doing such marvellous work, to the Tories. That ranks high on my short but significant FFS list – the things the Coalition has done that I can’t live with.

We are in Government at a really rubbish time. Even at the best of times, when we were in Government in Scotland, when we were implementing stacks of ground-breaking Liberal Democrat policy and had shedloads of money, the Party and the Holyrood team’s relationship was fraught with tension. Now we’re in Government during the worst period of economic trauma since the 1930s. I’ve recently read Alistair Darling’s book Back from the Brink and while I disagree with some of the decisions he made, I’m not sure I could have come anywhere close to coping with the dire economic shockwaves which were and still are going around.

I just think what would have happened if we hadn’t gone into coalition. We’d have had another election within 6 months which the Tories would have won and they would right now have already done things like cut housing benefit for all under 25s. The Human Rights Act would be in tatters and heaven knows what our relationship with Europe would be like. And children would still be locked up in Yarl’s Wood. Oh, and all the nasty web snooping stuff that the Liberal Democrats have insisted on further scrutiny under the liberal-hero eye of Julian Huppert, would le law now. Probably with Labour support.

When there’s no money, we have given low earners a tax cut, when the Tories would have prioritised rich dead people, Nick has led magnificently on mental health and the pupil premium, We’ve had the biggest ever cash rise in the state pension and Nick personally insisted on benefits going up in line with inflation last year.

On David Laws, one of the values we hold dearest is rehabilitation. David has taken his punishment, acknowledged and shown remorse for what he did – which was motivated purely out of a desire to protect his privacy rather than for personal gain. Never forget that had he been open about the relationship at the time, he could have claimed pretty much double the cost. He has atoned and is not going to re-offend. Is it therefore the liberal thing to keep him out in the wilderness? Every Lib Dem who’s gone on the media this week, on any phone in, has had a hard time from the tabloid reading public about David. We should not give a monkey’s. It may not be the popular thing, but it’s the right thing to do. He’s done his time and he clearly has the skills to do the job that he’s doing, however weird the combination of nukes, kids and jobs in his portfolio.

I am very encouraged by Ryan Coetzee’s appointment to replace Richard Reeves. This guy is a political street-fighter, not a policy guy and I expect a much more robust media strategy.

We Lib Dems are in a tough place at the moment. We aren’t making the most of our leader’s talents as I wrote last week. I was livid that we didn’t play to his strengths when he came to Scotland.

Nick Clegg’s current approval ratings are nothing to write home about, especially in Scotland. If we keep wasting opportunities to show off the real Nick, he will continue to be depicted as the bogeyman in London. Scotland has two young, talented, passionate, radical Liberal Democrat leaders. Scots know that Willie Rennie has not been shy in taking on the SNP establishment, supporting equal marriage and highlighting Alex Salmond’s links with Murdoch and how he’s panda-ed to China over human rights. It’s important they have the chance to learn more about Nick’s progressive, liberal, ideas and actions. They will find more common ground than they expect.

I’ll also leave you with some advice I had for him in March about how he needs to reconnect with the party.  More than any other, we rely on our activists being motivated enough to get out on the doorsteps. 

The last thing on earth I can imagine they want to do is to come out and soothe a scratchy party that they think doesn't understand them, but the more remote they become, the wider the gulf will get. Certainly, they can't be telling us the awful internal secrets of day to day Government life, but they can reassure us when we get a bit worried. For our part, we need to show them that we appreciate the things they are getting through and imagine what it must be like to have to deal with the likes of Eric Pickles, Theresa May and IDS on a daily basis.

In turn, we activists need to try to walk a couple of miles in his shoes. He spends his life doing the best he can to make Liberal Democrat values happen while having eyes in the back of his head to check that the Tories aren’t doing silly things.

If we change leader now, I’ll bet you anything that within 3 months, even the most well loved party darling would not have as high approval ratings. Being in Government is tough. We’re only going to make it tougher if we dump Nick. He needs the occasional kick up the backside, as all leaders do, but he deserves his position.