Clegg calls for honest politics. Honesty begins at home, Nick

I didn't hear Nick Clegg's speech yesterday, but I did watch his interview with Andrew Marr this morning. Naturally, you would not expect me to agree with his observation that David Cameron is a con man. I could say the same of Nick Clegg though after his interview with Marr.

Clegg is calling for grown-up politics. Whenever a politician says something like this, I always feel there is going to be a trick somewhere. I wasn't wrong. Clegg would love to honour the Liberal Democrat pledge to abolish tuition fees, but he can't. There isn't the money. This is him being honest? What he didn't say was whether his party would continue with this policy in a few years' time, when the lean years are over. Indeed, you can say this about any policy. You would love to do X,Y,Z, but unfortunately there isn't the cash available.

Voters to want to know in advance of a general election exactly what each party proposes. I hope I will hear more of what the Conservative Party proposes in Manchester and the beginning of next month, but to say you would do something, knowing full well you are not going to be able to do it, is not grown up politics; it is trying to con the electorate in thinking you are a better, nicer person than your opponents.

What is interesting is the way the LibDems are writing off Labour. There can't be many Labour members who truly believe Brown can turn this mess around, but what Clegg cannot afford to do is channel all his energy into fighting the Conservatives and forgetting to fight Labour. Here in my constituency of Hull North, the LibDems are the only party who can remove Labour. There will be contests like this around the country and with such a massive anti-government vote expected, there are going to areas where the Tory vote collapses and the LibDem vote collapses as people vote tactically to remove an incumbent Labour MP. I firmly believe if the Tories and the LibDems strategically place their activists, ie. forget any local squabbles and bus your supporters into key seats and more or less leave the other seats alone, we could make political history and wipe-out Labour for a very long time.