Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Something unusual is starting to happen...

I was just listening to the World at One and there was a piece about Goldman Sachs and banking in general. They discussed the situation with the legal proceedings against the bank and then they moved on to the political aspects to this.


They had a clip from Nick Clegg from his press conference this morning where he was castigating the bankers for their excesses. Not the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Or the Leader of the Opposition David Cameron. But Nick Clegg.

Then they had a politician with their party's Treasury brief in the studio to interview about the subject. It was Vince Cable. Not the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. Or his Conservative Shadow George Osborne. But Vince Cable.

We are now getting a fair crack of the whip in terms of media coverage. It is partially to do with the fact that we are in an election campaign anyway but it feels like more. It is starting to feel like the media realise that what the Lib Dems think about these things matters. That can only be because there is a sense that the party is in the ascendancy and an historic breakthrough may, and I stress may be just round the corner.

Of course what this extra coverage means is that people get to hear us more and more and we know from the coverage that the other two parties usually get that that helps with the recognition factor and hence often feeds through into the polls.

If this continues, the poll surge could very quickly start to become self-reinforcing.


UPDATE 13:55: Maybe I should have carried on listening beyond 1:30 as Jennie has just pointed out we very much did not get a fair crack of the whip in the second half not even being interviewed in a piece about a Lib Dem held seat. Maybe this is their bizarre way of trying to balance things out!?

3 comments:

Kalvis Jansons said...

I welcome the LibDems getting noticed, but I fear that they will do a deal with Labour. If I were sure that they would not, I would vote for them.

I voted LibDem last time, and before that voted for Labour. The only thing I am sure of this time, is that I do not want to see any more of Labour, and Mr Brown in particular.

Gordon said...

I hear that too and what really impressed me was the brisk no-nonsense way Vince dismissed the self-serving and totally untrue assertions of the spokeswoman from the British Bankers Association.

Rusty Liberal said...

I would also subscribe to this assertion but I think we can trace its roots back further than this election. The campaign to oust Michael Martin the Speaker and the Gurkha's rights campaign were also fought in a similar insurgent way against the power of the two big parties and received positive media attention. Maybe should have seen it coming?