Two-Faced Clegg Shows True Colours

Dreams of a well-hung parliament has left lacklustre LibDem leader, 'Kingmaker' Clegg, strutting around feeling important, milking it for all it's worth, revealing Two-Faced Clegg's true colours - red and blue.

The more Wonderboy Clegg opens his mouth, the more his true colours are revealed. Take your pick - red and yellow and green and blue.

Just where is Wonderboy coming from? In the muddled, confused world of LibDems, the answer is as clear as mud. But the little Party for the little people has finally woken up, smelt the Fairtrade coffee and realised a general election is just around the corner.

Waffle-on-a-stick has more heirs than the Hairy Bikers. Clegg the heir-to-Thatcher, in The Spectator. Cutting deeper than Tories, mesmerised by Maggie and with Stormin' Norman his new best friend. Clegg in the Independent. Wannabe heir-to-Blair with 'education, education, education', screw the rich with higher taxes, all washed down with greenwash.

In the confused world of the LibDem leader, the only certainties are an obsession with the EU and the dream of a voting system which will never see the light of day.

After ruling out immediate swingeing post-election cuts, now there's a cunning plan to make a £10 billion pound 'repayment' to cut the whopping £178 billion public debt with £200 billion of funny money swirling around.

A paltry £10 billion, eh? That will sure wipe the sweat off the brows of the moneymen. Everything's hunky dory in La-La-Land. Kinda puts Cleggy at odds with Saint Vince who reckons pussyfooting around is the best economic policy.

And where will the £15 billion of spending 'cuts' come from? Voters have to wait for Windbag Clegg to run that one past the Oracle. What a tease.

Once again the clapped-out band, the Cleggies, has re-released an old single in a forlorn fight-back. This time hoping Dancing With The Fairies will top the political hit parade.

The Orange Party is in no doubt LibDems made a big mistake plumping for a telegenic Blair lookalike as leader and fully paid up member of the political class. True to form, Euroboy has turned out shallow, untrustworthy and unpopular.

Confusing and disgraceful support over the undemocratic farce of the new EU Constitution/Treaty lost him any respect. Afghanistan? Don't go there. No one listens to Euro-boy Clegg, except his fan-club in the BBC and Guardian.

The Orange Party remembers the little lad accusing Dave of being a ‘conman’ who will "promise whatever they think it takes to get elected".

How we laughed.

Conman Cameron? That's a bit rich coming from a leader who's sunk to new depths as a New Labour clone of all style, no substance and a bad haircut.

Two-Faced Clegg is clutching at straws. Kingmaker Clegg is living on Fantasy Island with a hung parliament narrative driven by fishy push polls with dodgy weightings. Could Wonderboy ever bring himself to get into bed with a 'conman' in a hung parliament or grisly has-been Porkie Brown lying through his teeth at the Chilcot whitewash?

In poll after poll, LibDems are going nowhere with Nowhere Man in charge and only themselves to blame. But it's too late for the men and women in grey sandals to come for Clumsy Clegg. The LibDems made their Cleggy bed and they'll have to sleep in it with a windbag leader.

And that's a shame because there are a few good eggs in the basket-case Party.

Mid graphic: The Spectator

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Rogue Poll Sends Parties In A Tizz

A rogue poll has sent political parties in a tizz offering a meagre crumb of comfort for a fag-end government and its lamentable leader. Election weary voters were given only a short respite from hard core politicking. Now it's all hands to the pumps of a sinking ship.

A sure sign of political unrest and uncertainty comes when a single poll out of kilter with other polls is seized on to make political capital.

The 'surprise' Ipsos/Mori poll in yesterday's Observer should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As Anthony Wells over at UK Polling Report points out: "the big difference between MORI and other pollsters is that MORI do not politically weight their sample."

It's all down to the sampling and the political weightings, as Wells makes clear:

"Part of the reason for the shift in MORI’s voting intentions since last month is that their sample appears to have had significantly fewer people who voted Tory in 2005 and significantly more people who voted Labour in 2005."

Push polls, used extensively during the US presidential campaign, are common place in the run up to elections.

Taken on dubious face value, the poll cuts the Tory lead over New Labour to a narrow six points with the Tories on 37 per cent, Labour on 31 per cent and the Lib Dems down in the dumps on 17. A far cry from, er, the last major poll a couple of weeks ago.

But that didn't stop everyone and their political dog putting on their best Sunday spin, with the Observer proclaiming: "Poll boost for PM as confidence in economy grows". Yeh, sure.

The LibDem loving Observer even put a smile on the face of glum Clegg, jumping on his dream of a 'hung' parliament: "Chance of hung parliament as Conservative lead falls to 6%". LimpDems hanging on the coat tails of a hung parliament. Every wet liberals dream.

Tories have a fight on their hands to form a workable government. But that was always the case with an electoral system rigged in New Labour's favour. Even with a consistent double digit poll lead, Tories are not home and dry.

Cameron has managed to position the Tories as a 'government in waiting'. Boy George has done well to turn into Honest Osborne. But the sales pitch to voters is still 'David Cameron's Conservatives'.

The spectre of Cameron as a hyped up heir to Blair still haunts, is difficult to shake off and for many a turn off, despite the Sun banging the drum for Dave.

Dave's dithering EU referendum shuffle was a watershed. For the first time it seemed Cameron was heading for a Bernie Ecclestone moment even before he was in Downing Street.

Any politician who has to fall back on the lame of excuse of being 'a pretty straight kind of guy' to deflect deflated trust, faces an uphill task to win hearts and minds in the battle to contact and convince voters.

As the election approaches, the Orange Party believes the polls will have less to do with a 'hardening' of New Labour support, more to do with a 'softening' of Tory support.

Would-be Tories voters could well turn to UKIP if they were not such a joke and embarrassment. Hanging over New Labour is the traditional 'Liberal' enemy. Hanging over both main parties is the dark shadow of the BNP.

Buried in the Observer poll report was a salient sliver of truth which should send a shiver down the spine of the struggling Supreme Leader. A question over the party leaders which never saw the light of day in all the poll spin.

Brown is still down. Cameron is still on his uppers.

"Brown's personal rating remains in the doldrums. Only 34% of people are satisfied with his performance, against 59% who are dissatisfied. David Cameron had approval ratings of 48%, with 35% against."

What is clear is that the election grid is now fixed whoever carries the burnt out baton in the dying days of the doomed New Labour project.

Sealed with the sham of a Queen's Speech. Sealed with a deliberate campaign to increase the scandal of postal votes. Sealed with the outrage of pulling a squalid rabbit out of the hat close to election day.

Soon the recession depression will be officially over. Brown's BBC cheerleaders can finally wheel out their unrealistic but reassuring 'Upturn' graph. Couple that with a promise to pull troops out of the Afghan killing fields - sometime. Things can only get better but who will clean up the mess?

For voters a stark choice still remains. Who do they trust to place a firm hand on the economic tiller? Who do they trust to get to grips with a decade of lies, deceit, failure and disaster?

And who do they trust when a rogue poll is placed in a New Labour supporting newspaper on a wet Sunday to give Beleaguered Brown a much needed bounce?

UPDATE 7pm: A new Angus Reid Strategies poll for politicalbetting paints a very different picture. Conservatives 39%, Labour 22%, LibDems 21%.

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Queen Used As Election Pawn

The Queen is being used as an election pawn in a party political broadcast to parliament. The shameful charade of New Labour's 'Queen's Speech' is set to test the water with a manifesto and "smoke out the Tories". An insult to the public and total waste of time.

'Announcing populist measures to "smoke out" the Tories on policy, Brown has signalled the start of a bitter election campaign,' thunders The Times. Not in a news conference. Not in a party political broadcast. But through the age old tradition of Wednesday's official opening of parliament.

The Queen's Speech has been reduced to a glorified New Labour press release with Pussycat Peter's paw prints all over it.

Reading from a prepared script, it's left to Her Maj to set out her government's 'legislation' for the coming year. But none of the measures will see the light of day. Not least because of looming across the board spending cuts.

Missing from the 'manifesto' will be the budget and pre-budget report, increasingly used to set policy with key announcements.

Using a Queen's Speech in this way is an insult to voters and affront to parliamentary democracy. The Orange Party isn't turning yellow but LibDem leader Clegg has a valid point.

The "glitz and glamour" of the Queen's Speech, he said, would be "based on a complete fiction" because there were only 70 parliament days between now and the last date to dissolve parliament.

That kinda blows out of the water commons cheerleader, Harman's insistence that "the majority of the bills in the forthcoming Queen's Speech would become law before the general election".

Laws take, on average, 240 days to pass through all stages. If Bottling Brown finally gives the public what they want and calls the election before going all the way to the wire, then time is even tighter.

Then strict election broadcasting laws kick in. Parliament grinds to a halt. The commons won't see MPs for dust as they scurry off to begin the election battle proper.

Tough times call for tough measures to tackle jobs and the recession, a decaying social culture and downright distrust of the political system. Instead an election gimmick is being used to sound out the public mood, shore up the struggling Supreme Leader's precarious position and try to wrong-foot the opposition.

Mention parliament to voters and only one thing springs to mind - the disgrace of the MPs' expenses scandal.

Clegg has called for the Queen's Speech to be cancelled and replaced with emergency reforms to "clean up politics".

Parliament could usefully use its time to clean up its act with a fresh start ready for voting day, instead of trying to water down Kelly with an MPs' expenses stitch up.

Using precious time to restore trust, sounds a pretty sensible idea. "The one gift this failed Parliament can give its successor is a fresh start," said Clegg.

Battling Brown has finally fired the election starting gun but it feels like the parties have been limbering up with an increasingly bitter campaign for donkey's years. A weary public is fed up with all the dithering and dilly-dallying.

Using a Queen's Speech as a party political tool ahead of an election isn't new. But this one smacks of party politicking like no other. Voters will see through another shameless New Labour smoke and mirrors sham. Using taxpayers cash to get some free publicity is a cheap stunt.

Using the speech as rearguard action to whip up flagging support from core voters in the vain hope of preventing total wipe-out is a dodgy way to dupe voters.

As Clegg said, it will serve as "little more than a rehearsal of the next Labour manifesto" and "an attempt to road test policy gimmicks".

The floundering ship is sinking fast in an ocean of failure and disaster. Half-baked unfunded policies are now the order of the day in a stagnant Whitehall. It's a sure sign of election time when U-turns come thick and fast.

Voters feel in their bones that it is time for a change. Beleaguered Brown has lost public confidence. Cameron is the PM in waiting. Isn't it about time the fag-end government showed the electorate some respect?

Instead ministers are left with little to do but dish out dollops of Brown sauce to an election battle weary public.

Top picture: Private Eye cover 1964. Mid picture: Private Eye

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Shlock Band 'Cleggies' Spin Worn Out Record

Clapped-out shlock band, the Cleggies, have re-released an old single in a forlorn fight-back. Leader, Nasty Nick, hopes Pot Calls The Kettle Black will top the political hit parade. But it's set to fall on deaf ears.

With their usual abysmal lack of timing and tact, the little Party for the little people has finally woken up, smelt the Fairtrade coffee and realised a general election is just around the corner.

But instead of rounding on the shameful sham of a government who got the country into a mess, Libby leader Nasty Nick has accused Delectable Dave of being a ‘conman’ who will say anything to win the next election. Well knock me down with a wet Liberal Weekly.

Calamitous Clegg has come out of the closet flaunting his Social Democrat New Labour credentials. In a speech heavily trailed in advance, he has chosen to brush aside Borrowing Brown and turn on "Conman Cameron" and the Conservatives who will "promise whatever they think it takes to get elected".

Er, isn't that what politicians do to try to win votes? Saying something is better than just aimlessly a-huffin' and a-puffin' your way along.

Name calling is a big turn off for voters. Alliteration to capture soundbites and headlines is a cheap stunt. Conman Cameron? That's a bit rich coming from the Party who plumbed the depths for a telegenic Blair lookalike.

Sure cuddly Cameron comes with a Blair health warning. He talks the talk, walks the walk. Mr Ambition may be all things to all men, the heir to Blair. But judging by opinion polls, voters are warming to him. Just pray he doesn't turn into a post election 'straight kinda guy'.

All things to all men? Isn't that the name of the Clegg-Cable double act?

LibDems have a leader waiting in the wings, in the shape of seer Saint Vince consistently riding high in the popularity stakes. Clearly Clegg doesn't like riding on the back of Saint Vince. It's time the men and women in grey sandals came for the walking disaster that is Clegg. He's a bigger liability than bunkered, bumbling, borrowing Brown.

The country's on its knees, run by a desperate bunch of has-beens and unelected hangers on, limping along in a dying government.

Only last year Clegg announced a sensible strategy to target resources on 50 New Labour seats in the general election. Now confusingly forming an 'anti-Tory attack unit' smacks of LibDem desperation. Could Clegg ever bring himself to get into bed with a 'conman' in a hung parliament?

The election phoney war is now a battle of the 'savage cuts'. This should be the time for radical, constructive, not destructive, words from the little Party leader.

Smearing New Labour henchmen tried it on with the 'Tory Toffs' line and it back-fired. Why should Clegg think his tactic will fair any better? Voters have more sense than to listen to cobbled together cobblers.

In election after recent by-election, LibDems are going nowhere. There's no reason to suppose things will get any better at the general election with the Nowhere Man in charge.

Clegg was elected as a Blair type. All style and no substance. Big mistake. No one understands or cares what he's talking about. His confusing and disgraceful support over the undemocratic farce that is the new EU Constitution/Treaty didn't win him any friends. No one listens to Euro-boy Clegg, except his fan-club in the BBC and the Guardianistas.

New Labour must be loving' it. Liberals are Labour's traditional enemy, not the Tories. Labour stalwarts reserve a particular distaste for 'Liberals' usually spat out between gritted teeth.

Just where is Clegg coming from? In the muddled, confused world of LibDem politics, the answer is as clear as mud.

He has all the hallmarks of the New Labour Political Class and EU Political Elite. From prep-school to public school then Cambridge, reading Mickey Mouse archaeology and anthropology for the 'nice but dim', then a political career in the EU. Nicholas William Peter Clegg, like many of the new breed of political elite shortens to the 'call me Tony' moniker.

The LibDems are going nowhere in the opinion polls but have only themselves to blame. Instead of coming over all radical, they chose a New Labour clone with a daft haircut who looks OK on telly but bores the pants off voters.

The LibDems made their Cleggy bed and they'll have to sleep in it with a windbag leader taking the Party to new depths at the next election.

Conman Cameron? How Numbskull Nick must wish he could pull off that one. The Orange Party can't help thinking there's a little bit of sour grapes in that shlock jock's jibes.

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Springtime For Little Hitler

Springtime for bunkered Brown just got worse with Herr Flickr featured on the front page of powerful US website Drudge complete with grinning photograph. Scary smile, shame about the swastika.

It's turned out to be just another bad Herr day for Brown - again. 

Featuring on Drudge who's taken the lead from today's Times and splashed the PM in all his uber-glory, it's not what the spin doctor ordered. 

Back in Blighty, the deluded prime minister ducked and dived during PMQs with cries of infamy, infamy, the've all got it in for me as Tories pressed home the disarray eating away at the heart of a fag-end government and goaded the Supreme Leader over his temper tantrums. 

Cameron called on Brown to call an election now and a vote of no confidence can't be too far behind. But battered Brown tried to beat off the blows by hiding in the bunker.

Clegg too was on fine form for the LibDems with a bit of fire in his belly after his Gurkha triumph - though the commons camera angle always makes him look rather small fry. 

It's pay back time from Drudge after popular US talk radio host, Michael Savage, popped up on porno Smith's banned list of people she doesn't like: "UK banning people for what they think not do" as Drudge puts it. 

Savage is threatening to sue two homes secretary Smith for having the bare-faced cheek to lump him in with a bunch of violent nasties and is adamant he's not even planning a visit. As the plot thickens, Drudge has taken up the cause and the cudgel. 

Cross Drudge at your peril, as old man Clinton found to his cost as both Bill and the dirty washing of his dalliance with Monica L was hung out to dry.

The photograph of beleaguered Brown smiling away without a care in the world, blissfully unaware of the darkness behind him, does beg the question just who is in charge of the Downing Street press office, or even Downing Street for that matter?

How on earth Brown was allowed to be photographed in front of a wall full of children’s artwork of WWII, including several swastikas beggar's belief. There are only two Hs in school history these days - Henry and Hitler. 

The Orange Party has many liberal pals in the land of the free and free speech and is starting to feel a tad embarrassed. It really does make you feel ashamed of having to suffer a buffoon in Blighty. 

Springtime for little Hitlers and democracy? The only thing left is to sing a refrain from the Producers:

"Don't be foolish, be a smarty come and join Brown's Labour Party". Or maybe not.

Brown and his bunch of chancers living in La-La Land can't do right for doing wrong. Things can only get worse not better. But the Party is damned if they ditch Brown and damned if he stays. 

Faced with a no-win situation and the ignominy of relentless ridicule, a general election now is the only solution before it's too late and mistrust and betrayal turns to real anger and hatred from voters.

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Gurkha Victory Brings Brown To His Knees

A shamed government has been brought crashing to its knees by the Gurkhas, as a deadly alliance of Tory, LibDem and Labour MPs threw out minister's indecent plans and cast further doubts on Brown's authority.

In what New Labour feared most, a deadly alliance of Tories, LibDems and backbench Labour MPs rounded on the fag-end of a government on an issue which has the backing of the whole country.

Cries of 'resign' from some and gasps from others echoed round the chamber as the ayes were announced.

MPs voted by 267 to 246 in favour of a LibDem motion that all Gurkhas should be offered an equal right of residence.

The humiliating defeat in the commons will send shock waves through Westminster as the government's hard-nosed policy of restricting the right of former Gurkhas to settle in the UK was rounded on as a shameful disgrace.

What a useless pair they are - a deluded Brown and his hapless home secretary. Fancy picking a fight with the Gurkhas. MPs and the whole country had united over a regiment which is so dear to the hearts and respected by everyone.

This Dad's Army bunch of ministers and pay-roll MPs led by corporal Brown deserved their comeuppance. According to Lib Dems, some 28 Labour MPs along with Tories voted for their motion to scrap "shameful" rules, despite last minute clumsy concessions offered to rebel Labour MPs, with a high number of abstentions swinging the vote.

The defeat is also a further nail in the coffin for two homes secretary Smith, who's already facing fury over her expenses fiddles and the heavy-handed handling of the Damian Green home office scandal.

As Brown's power ebbs away, he faces a further test tomorrow as MP's vote on what's left of his muddled MPs' expenses non-solution.

In a rare sight, Clegg and Cameron looked relaxed together, with a delighted Clegg saying: "This is an immense victory on a series of fronts: for the rights of Gurkhas who have been waiting so long for justice, a victory for Parliament, a victory for decency."

Cameron said it was "embarrassing" for the prime minister because his efforts to strike a "shoddy deal" with Labour rebels had failed.

A mere 36,000 former Gurkhas have been denied residency because they served in the British army before 1997. The home office reckoned new rules would allow just 4,300 more to settle but the Gurkha Justice Campaign said it would be more like a paltry 100.

Brown should have heeded the warning from Army chiefs over the Gurkhas: I don't know what they'll do to the enemy but they sure scare the hell out of me.

Picture: A rose between two thorns. Clegg and Cameron with Gurkha Avenger Joanna Lumley outside Parliament

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Will Cameron Come Back All Statesman-Like?

Cameron is set to return to Westminster tomorrow a New Man. First blue turned into green then Mr Angry. But now the rebranded Tory leader is set to be the new statesman, positioning himself for the prize of the premiership. No wonder New Labour is running scared. 

For Cameron's Conservatives it has been a game of two halves but the trick has always been whether he could pull it off with the voters. 

The uphill task was to first turn round the Tories into a Party that could be 'elected' . And that was no mean feat as taunts that he was just another heir-to-Blair and a Thatcher's boy haunted him. 

After the 2005 election defeat, the Orange Party, believed it would take a decade and a couple of general elections for the Tories to begin to gain ground. 

But even with no general election on the horizon, Cameron had it easy, as he rebranded the Party in the eyes of the electorate. 

Misguided PR stunts made Cameron look a fool but Brown made his fatal mistake, bottling a general election in 2007. Cameron would have been out on his ears. But Brown didn't and the rest will be history. 

To Cameron's credit and relief of the Tory big guns, what emerged was a 'government-in-waiting'. And after half-time the second half could now begin.

A new Tory Cameron came out fighting but time and again opinion polls and local election results showed a vote against New Labour rather than a vote for the Tories. A true Labour revolt was no match for the powerful New Labour elite.  

It was a collapse of New Labour rather any great new enthusiasm for Cameron's new kids on the block.

Peter Oborne writing in yesterday's Mail believes this second stage of Cameron's leadership has now run its course:  

"The truth is that Cameron was always destined to reinvigorate his job - his family tragedy coincidentally placing a sad punctuation mark at the end of the second phase of his leadership. 

"The other Cameron was simply leader of the Opposition. But the new Cameron will present himself as a prospective prime minister - a more mature, sombre and tough individual than the plausible charmer of the past few years."

The Orange Party will miss Mr Angry coming over all hot and bothered as he squared up to Brown and the mess of a festering New Labour government. 

But Cameron, the new statesman, capable of dealing with a monumental economic crisis, will require a change of substance as well as style. 

Backing Brown's disastrous economic bullshit that the economy was in good shape, despite the warnings, wasn't fatal for the Tories but it did teach Cameron some harsh lessons. Being honest with voters is always the best policy in the long-run, as long that captures public mood. 

Even now, the Tories seem to be backing the government, matching spending on health, welfare, education and defence, when the economy is so bad some of these grand commitments will have to go by the board. Voters need to know where they stand.

Brown's government is set for another pre-election spending spree in next month's delayed budget on the back of reckless borrowing and the short-term 'printing money' fix. 

Cameron cannot ignore the fact that he will, very soon, take over a country on its beam ends. 

The deluded prime minister and his hapless chancellor remain in denial about the severity of the situation. That would force them to own up to their part in the downfall, as they carrying on spending like there's no tomorrow. For them, there is no tomorrow. 

But Cameron is on the horns of a dilemma. Does he come clean and admit the true devastating scale of the crisis and risk being  accused of talking down the sorry state of the economy and the country to make political capital?

A different kind of country will no doubt emerge once the recession depression finally lifts and voters have a right to know exactly what kind of public services and lavish overseas spending commitments will have to go.

Brown is passing on a disaster waiting to happen but Cameron still has to give voters a strong and positive reason to vote Conservative. 

Cameron cannot just wander into office, do a Brown and Darling and  bury his head in the sand, pretending that he will not have to carry out brutal cuts to state spending. 

He has to spell out  the sheer magnitude of the problem without appearing to gloat in all the misery. 

But it is essential that he does spell out the stark truth. Voters are wised up to the economy and can see through the lies, spin and deceit which has built up over the years. 

The brutal fact for the dying New Labour brand is that the Tories really don't have to do all that much at all.

Clegg's fine words to conference reveal the Blair-boy he really is underneath and, for the LibDems, only the economic oracle Cable is propping up the Party and saving it from oblivion. 

The Bearded One reported in today's Sunday Times has once again delivered a sermon from the pulpit, slating Brown and the government. Attacking New Labour rather than individual greed, the Archbishop of Canterbury blamed the financial crisis on a "spectacular failure of responsibility by the government." 

When even God deserts New Labour you know it's time to call it a day. 

And Cameron may not have much time to convince voters, with ITN's Tom Bradbury blowing the gaffe on Brown's air-rage, revealing a man who has lost the plot.

The men in grey cloth-caps may have to finally force Brown to make that call for the good of his health, their seats and country. 

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