Events | 2010.08.27
Nick Clegg Q&A – live
Paul Owen with minute-by-minute coverage as the deputy prime minister meets the voters in Croydon
12.05pm: Clegg is asked about animal rights, the abuse of animals in bloodsports and factory farming, and whether Britain should adopt a vegetarian diet to combat global warming.
Clegg says he grew up in the countryside and understands people\'s passion for animals. He says the government is "completely dedicated to animal welfare".
He says he has been arguing in favour of new rules to minimise animal testing.
12.04pm: Clegg has started speaking.
11.55am: Nick Clegg and David Cameron seem to love to surround themselves with members of the public for Q&A sessions selling the government\'s economic message, and Clegg has another one today, starting at midday in Croydon.
It\'s fair to say that Cameron is a bit better at these events than his deputy PM. Cameron has taken to power like a duck to water, and genuinely seems to enjoy having it out with the voters, almost in the manner of a royal meeting some slightly discontented subjects. Clegg seems less comfortable in such a setting, and initially seemed more cautious, even dull, in his answers, falling back on trite statements of government policy, since any departure from coalition orthodoxy would be gleefully written up by people like me as a split or rebellion.
A recent Q&A event in Newcastle , however, saw him become rather too interesting for his own good, losing his temper with a questioner who asked: "I\'m just wondering how you intend to persuade future Liberal Democrat voters to vote for you at the next election now that you are part of a coalition that\'s seemingly on an ideological crusade to attack the weakest in society and make them pay for the decisions and greed of those at the top in the last 10 years or so?"
Clegg repeatedly silenced and interrupted the questioner, telling him: "Do I accept your characterisation? It is totally and utterly misleading. I think it is wrong. I think there is no evidence to the case."
Two days later, in Bristol , he was rather short-tempered again with a man who asked: "Given the lack of a mandate currently, what justifies your rather brutal social policies, your tax rises? All the while you are protecting your own job under the guise of electoral reform."
"Thanks for such a helpful question," Clegg replied. "You\'ve obviously got an axe to grind."
Clegg has been "holding the fort" for a couple of weeks while Cameron has been on holiday, and can perhaps expect to do so for a bit longer now the Camerons\' second daughter has been born – although Downing Street were being cagey this morning about whether the prime minister\'s holiday was going to be followed by paternity leave. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader and the voice of his party\'s left, has caused Clegg some trouble , and polls have shown the Lib Dems\' poll ratings falling; on the other side of the ledger, Clegg made a well-received speech about improving social mobility , although analysis showing that the coalition\'s June budget disproportionately affected the poor raised questions about how current Tory-Lib Dem policies will affect such mobility.
Clegg will be taking questions from midday and I\'ll be covering it live here.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/[...]liberal-conservative-coalition
Instagram is adding automatic in-app text translation - The Verge views: 1523
Here’s a ‘Brand-New’ Massive Multilingual Dataset for Machine Translation views: 1509