1923 AND ALL THAT

I AM NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO STATE the importance of knowing history if one wishes to successfully run a business or country. If Chamberlain had read the story of Alexander “the Great” of Macedon, who successfully lied and promised his way from “just one little conquest” more before going on to invade and occupy the whole of Greece, Turkey and Asia Minor, then he would not have believed Hitler. If Napoleon had studied the downfall of Alexander then he would have been content to stop at Italy; and if Hitler had studied Napoleon then he would have drawn the line somewhere just east of Warsaw.

WHICH BRINGS US TO OAFISH NICK CLEGG, who might have done well to read the history of yesterday’s Liberal Party before yesterday plunging today’s Liberal Democrat Party into an abyss hitherto unimaginable for the three major parties in United Kingdom politics. He would be particularly well-advised to have a look at the last majority Liberal Government and its disastrous policy of coalitions leading to an electoral defeat in 1922 that reduced a party that for almost a century had been a dominant force to one that would fit on a London omnibus tram. The decline continued until by the sixties the whole party could fit in a taxi.

BRITISH POLITICS IS REMARKABLY SIMPLE: to be a candidate for election one pays a deposit of £500, which is returned as long as one gets more than 5% of the votes. Thus we usually have a selection of folk willing to cough up a relatively small amount of cash in order to have a political platform and total freedom of expression (see Sunday Mornings passim) and then forfeit the half a grand. This explains why we have candidates from such seemingly absurd parties as the Bus-Pass Elvis Party and the Pirate Party of the UK, as well as thousands of independents with the most colourful agendas.

I MENTION THIS FOR TWO REASONS: the first is that the three main parties are supposed to finish in the top three in most constituencies; fourth perhaps where there is a large anti-Europe feeling. Yesterday Clegg’s “party of the future” finished in an unprecedented sixth place, with the Lib-Dem candidate losing his deposit and being defeated by, among others, an independent with a colourful programme. The second reason is that, having paid my Council Tax yesterday, I am now once again, after a long absence from the electoral lists, able to stand for election next time; which I will do, forming my own party (I will register the name in Chester Town Hall next Tuesday), the Make Clegg History Party. Clegg will be so unpopular by then that I imagine I have a good chance at getting into Westminster. In this I am, of course, supported by my good lady wife, who is standing by me at this time.