Amazing declaration from Brian Paddick

Saturday 7th January

A small article on the London news which always follows News at Ten caught my eye.  I am usually not paying much attention by now, and waiting for the weather, and then a quick switch over to Newsnight for something a bit meatier.  The London Mayoral elections are coming up in a few months, not that I can find a single person who is mildly interested in the looming contest, a bit like the AV referendum of last year it is set to be a bit of a damp squib.  Perhaps because it is a re-run of the preceding one, and competent though Ken may be he is looking too old and too old hat by now.  Besides although Boris is really a buffoon, he is also a clever buffoon who carefully cultivates his image, knowing that his popularity is more that he is the sort of bloke you might like to meet down the pub than he is a serious politician.

The Liberal Democrats are also pretty desperate if all they can offer us is Brian Paddick, who came in a poor third last time.  Competent as I am sure he is, and gay and an ex-copper, he has obviously had a personality by-pass, as he really is blandness on a plate.

He was, for what it is worth, launching his campaign and he made the startling remark that despite being a Liberal Democrat you could trust him.  He specifically mentioned tuition fees, and declared that he was not the sort of Liberal who would make a pledge on tuition fees and then vote the other way once in power.  No, he wasn’t that sort of a Liberal, and you could absolutely trust that he would do exactly as he said.

I wonder what Nick Clegg thinks of that, and what a remarkable admission, by default, of the collective guilt and remorse felt by one suspects a lot of Liberals at the obvious betrayal by Clegg and Co.  Is this now to be the line by all prospective candidates – I am not one of those liars who declare a specific policy and within weeks of going into coalition not only ditch it, but vote against the very thing we fought on.   And if so, the leadership of the Liberal Democrats must be very worried indeed.

In a funny sort of a way I think people used to trust the Liberals as honest; not enough to vote for them I admit, but I believe they held them in some sort of respect; different from the other two known liars.  But now that has completely disappeared.  They have been exposed as the worst sort of opportunists and are I suspect in for a drubbing at every election until Mr. Clegg is hurriedly pushed aside.