This strikes me as exactly the sort of article that Nick Clegg should be writing.

Emphasising both the total collapse of the increasing failed New Labour project and the unacceptability of the primary alternative {albeit not to my satisfaction with the latter, but to be fair this wasn’t meant to be a rant} Clegg does his best to set out why the Liberal Democrats are the only viable party for the disenchanted leftists of which there are so many. And what language! “A home for progressives”, why, we clearly have here a man atuned to his audience. Homelessness is unquestionably the sensation overcoming British left-wingers who see their intuitive party of choice demanding six weeks of imprisonment for the potentially without a charge or trial. Who read of alarmingly blatant references to “coercion” in internal government documents. Who plunged us into a pointless war that left our forces mangled and fingers blood-drenched then refused to apologise or retreat. Who seemed to pluck the very worst of statism and harness none of the best.

And that fidgeting, incessant longing for change that wafts across the Atlantic, where it seems that earnest leftism of some sort has become unstoppable. While here that momentum is perversely ridden upon by an institution that bears the word Conservative in its very name. That seems delightful if listened to absently but upon closer inspection reveals itself to be almost as foul as it has always been. Just as reactionary, if not more so. Serving the affluent instead of those with any real needs not provided for by the family estates. Threatening to set about fining those that live in family arrangements which displease it. Eying what little good their opponents have done while fingering an ill-concealed blade.

Yes, Clegg has us pinned down far better than even Cameron and judging by this display his ability to make the correct noises is even more skilled at making the right noises to coax our ear. The extent to which he is actually saying anything different to the Conservatives is questionable (see especially the references to the “Top-down NHS” he wishes to reform and cries for further localism) but there is the advantage that Clegg actually seems to be a man in possession of an earnest bone and thus we can expect these to be his genuine views, rather than merely what is expedient.

However if the Tories talking like him can be forgiven, him talking like a Tory can not be. Any politician who uses the phrase “ordinary families” runs the immediate risk of me slapping down the paper in disgust. There is no such structure and has never been. To exacerbate matters he brings tax cuts into it and thus begins basing his economic policy upon fantasy. Hardly a novel criticism to level at the Liberal Democrats, I am well aware, but when considering them as a viable party of power such matters must come under consideration.

Worse still he has bought into the rather peculiar notion of “Choice” being what the state should aim for above all in public services, rather than doing its utmost to ensure that it offers that service well. For instance in the example Clegg uses of emphasising the parental role in deciding schooling the value of assigning further “choice” is surely highly limited: a parent will wish their child to achieve and to be happy. If educational establishments provided by the state allow for as much then there will be nothing to choose. It is only the failures of the system which parents will attempt to swerve around and unless it can be outlined exactly how this will help resolve them this is in no way a solution.

But besides these irksome raw notes {which are what you get when dealing with even the most charming of liberals} there is salvation: Clegg had this reader almost salivating at his utterly unexpected ressurection of the term “Ethical foreign policy”. I once was posted on a parlimentary placement with a member of the Labour Party who, when I questioned him upon the dissappearance of this promise, curtly replied “Robin Cook is dead.” But in Clegg, it seems, his spirit lives on. A glorious piece of knowledge to possess, if not something we can be certain would become manifest were he to take power.

The pledge alone, though, gives me hope and pleasure. I had imagined the concept lost in an ocean of Saudi oil and the cash-for-firearms dollars of a thousand tyrants.

Clegg described it in the print edition as

lost on the road to Mesopatania

but that he at least has found it gives me some spark of desire for once not entirely futile that Cook’s vision be realised.

Something, then, for everyone here. From the easing of the tax burden (as the cutters would have it) on certain families to the statistical ruminations upon the poor to please poverty warriors to the anti-central talk that pleasures localisers to the aforementioned glee it brought about in me concerning matters abroad. It seems that he has gathered the foundation stones for an electoral coalition, here. Certainly enough for a studier structure than the rapidly crumbling edifice of the Labour Party.

Let us see what he builds.