22 April, 2010
The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Express have the knives out for Clegg today.
Last week gave them some lovely headlines and the pundits had a lot of fun watching the two big parties squirm. An election with no hero suddenly had a loveable underdog.
But enough’s enough and it looked like it was getting out of hand. Time to undermine him ahead of tonight’s TV debate. Time to put the word “Nazi” next to the word “Clegg”.
But imagine you were switched on to Clegg last week. This guy, you might have thought, who talks sense, who tells it how it is, who stands outside the fray – he has something about him. Sure, your interest in Clegg was ‘soft’ support; you could be persuaded out of it in a flash. But now the establishment, which of course includes the press, is running scared and turning against him – is that going to put you off?
The Outsider is being pushed outside? That doesn’t make you change your mind. It reminds you why you felt we needed a breath of fresh air in the first place. It confirms his USP.
Clegg won’t be laughing all the way to the Bristol studios tonight, but he will surely see opportunity here. Play his cards right – put the press in the same box as the old parties – and some of that soft support will be hardening nicely, thank you very much.
Just stood on my local Co-op absolutely openmouthed as I looked at the newspaper stand. Clegg must be doing something right to have Murdoch et al so very, very scared. Not since Kinnock has there been such co-ordinated hatred (and lies).
I think there is a measure of difference between the self-parodying Daily Mail headline, and the line of attack taken up by the Daily Telegraph and Humphreys vs. Huhne this morning (http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8636000/8636697.stm)
I agree with the writer: Clegg needs to keep his nuts dry, and keep up a healthy level of disdain for both the other parties. Make it clear that it’s better to owe Johnny Walker a little than Rupert Murdoch a lot.
People power!
Looks like the twitter joke #nickcleggsfault, in which the good people of the net ridiculed the press’s onslaught against Clegg, neutralised the criticism. Clegg just smiled and waved through it all, and emerged unscathed.