Clegg Bite

Nick Clegg answered some questions at a meeting in Boat of Garten village hall. I was surprised that BBC Scotland`s Ian Macdonald considered his welcome to have been warm and that the "faithful" were assembled. Admittedly there was little outright hostility, but the mood of the hall, (about three quarters full),was, I thought, restrainedly glum. Sincere? maybe but my view of him would be as a politician who is smart, smooth and glib.Was he like Cameron at one time a PR man? What most struck me was his ability to portray the economic policy of the Coallition as not hugely different from what the country has experienced in recent times. There was no great cutback in public spending and this myth, he asserted, was being used by political opponents to improperly defame the Government`s pursuit of the impalatable, but necessary economic course. ("There is no alternative!"). He went as far as to state that Manchester Council`s recent announcement of unavoidable job losses was prompted by a desire to boost the Labour Party`s position in the run up to the Oldham bye-election. For me, his most revealing answer was to a questioner, concerned that overseas aid funding had been ring fenced. Clegg was extremely insistent that overseas aid was not altruism but was carried out only for good reasons of self interest. Whatever else one thinks of Liberalism, there had been a thread in at least, its Highland version, of real concern for one`s fellow man. Does the arrival of Clegg`s leadership and of our own MP`s importance in the delivery of Government policy signal the end of Liberalism in the Highlands?