Clegg-Mania

In recent weeks, people seem to have suddenly remembered that the Liberal Democrats do, in fact, have a leader, in the form of Nick Clegg. This has caused quite the stir in the media, with Murdoch's papers opting for "Nick Who?" until the first election debate, when they opted instead to embrace an openly hostile front against him, claiming his private education makes him unelectable, and we should vote for old-Etonian David Cameron instead. The other papers, in general, started to offer more accurate critiques of his style than "He's Libdem, so we can ignore him", leading to a media frenzy over Nick Clegg.

Nick Clegg, preaching for change in this nation, is vaguely reminiscent of a British Obama, inspiring the youth to register to vote, and to vote Libdem, even getting the Guardian to offer a full endorsement of them (Link), which is the first national endorsement I've ever seen of the Libdems. Change is afoot people.

Part of this is his natural charisma, which leaves David Cameron looking insincere, and since Gordon Brown is about as charismatic as a broken fencepost, Clegg is the only one who came out of the debates as a likeable and progressive idealist with an apparently sincere concern for the voters.

He was of course, aided by the Conservatives and Labour taking political shots at each other all the way through the thing, a fact Clegg showed with his role of exasperated politician, tired of this nonsense and just wanting to represent the common man, while Cameron and Brown were looking likely to break out into fisticuffs.

He has mobilised the youth of the nation out of this apathy, part of which I put down to the current first past the post system which Libdems want changed. If you didn't vote for who won, your vote is essentially disregarded in the grand scheme of things. If you didn't vote for the winner, you might as well not vote, so un-established parties will almost never get a look in, and people will feel their presence voting is wasted if they aren't voting Labour or Conservative. Proportional Representation is a better system, and although mathematically, it's difficult to find a perfect system, it'd be "Fairer" (To use the Nick Clegg catchphrase) if every vote really counted, and incentivised us to vote Libdem.

It's fair to say that politics has descended horrendously into a club, where you come in, you're set for life, then you leave on a generous pension, and in a safe seat, there's no motive to truly fight for your constituents, because who are they going to elect instead? Nick Clegg's promise of being able to kick out an MP is a good one, they are meant to represent our best interests, not their own. Fundamentally I disagree with party politics, it encourages people to look after their own advancement in the party before looking after the people, but the LibDems are promising a different system, hopefully better.

I've become disillusioned with politics, and I'm not really voting LibDem, I'm voting for change. A change to how things are done in parliament. If the Tories truly represented change, instead of their disgusting practice of preaching it in the form of posters, but practicing nothing. They are so staunchly anti-change with respect to the voting system, they seem like time-travellers from 1894. "Another voting system?! There is no such thing, surely!" which could explain why David Cameron was staring at the camera with an air of bemusement in the latter elections. "A moving picture box, you say? How marvellous! Excuse me, I must shoot some things", something his election campaign neglected to mention. "Vote Cameron, great guy, excellent shot". Their hilarious inability to treat homosexuals with any modicum of respect ("Get out of my B&B, you not normal person, and get to a church set up to cure gays!") should demonstrate that.

So a vote for LibDem is a vote for change, and I'm guessing by the numbers polls are reporting, REAL change is what many of us desire.

Vote for Nick, he's just a Cleggular guy! The Libdem campaign should go for the Cleggular, and leave Cameron with Clegg on his face!