Posted April 10, 2014

Published on Liberal Democrat Voice By The Voice | Mon 7th April 2014 – 1:17 pm

13 hours after leaving the debate stage last Wednesday night, Nick Clegg was back on his regular Call Clegg radio show. The show had been nominated twice in the Radio Academy Awards to be presented next month.

The first caller, Caron from West Lothian, (who might she be, I wonder?) made the point that she was highly amused by David Cameron trying to pretend that he was the voice of reason on Europe when his plan was to sell all our employment rights down the river and then give us a referendum. Her question to him was that although he’s a powerful advocate of the EU, he acknowledges that it’s not perfect, what 3 things would he do to make it better.

Nick’s answer:
•More Trade
•Scrap the expensive monthly trek to Strasbourg (championed by all Lib Dem MEPs with a special mention for Edward McMillan-Scott)
•Less red tape for small businesses

He also remembered that when he was an MEP it took a decade and a half to decide on a chocolate directive – hardly the work of a monstrous superstate.

Later on in the problem, he came back to discussing Cameron’s plans and basically said that nobody really understood what it was about. That rather suggests that James Forsyth’s suggestion that the Tory plan would not be a barrier to a second coalition is not accurate. This is what Nick actually said:

I think David Cameron’s renegotiation – I still don’t understand what its supposed to be about. From what I’ve read in the newspapers, it’s a little tweak here and a little tweak there. I don’t think it’ll satisfy anyone in the Conservative party many of whom agree with Nigel Farage and want to leave the European Union altogether.

Asked about whether it would be a “red line” in any coalition negotiations, he added:

I believe in reform, but I don’t believe it’s a realistic prospect to do what I think David Cameron initially suggested which is to repatriate a bunch of powers. We’ll keep the good bits and let everyone else keep the bad bits.