Clegg defends 'Brokeback coalition'
Updated on 24 July 2010
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg tells Channel 4 News "Brokeback coalition" comparisons are unsurprising, as people get to grips with the government's "new politics" - and also defends his right to a personal opinion on the Iraq War, aired at PMQs on Thursday.
Speaking to Channel 4 News's Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that he expected comments such as Tory backbencher David Davis's comparison of the government to a "Brokeback coalition", because of the novelty factor.
He said: "I think it's just unsurprising that people will express concerns in private, public or semi public because what we're doing in this coalition is very, very new. And when you do something new, in politics as much as in any other walk of life, of course people are going to react against it and say: 'I prefer the old way, I think this isn't going to work'.
"And of course you get that in both parties, Conservative and Liberal Democrat. I think it would be more suprising if there was not a ripple of anxiety across both parties...
"Many people who don't follow the twists and turns of Westminster political commentary like the fact that from time to time, politicans are able and willing to set their differences aside in order to govern for the long term benefit of the country, and that's what we're trying to do."
Tory MP David Davis was overheard in a wine bar, describing the coalition as the "Brokeback coalition" - comments he credited to Lord Ashcroft - and also saying that the flagship policy of a Big Society merely disguised cutbacks to the state.
He was speaking in a wine bar with former colleagues, and was overheard by FT journalists who said his comments were clearly audible across the venue. Mr Davis says he has been misquoted in his comparison of the coalition to film Brokeback Mountain, about a gay relationship, and on other topics.
Nick Clegg took the story in good humour, saying he had seen Brokeback Mountain too long ago to comment on whether he fitted into the role of Heath Ledger's character or Jake Gyllenhall's.
"I see myself as someone who is trying to do something new, in partnership with the Conservative party and with David Cameron to create a sense of long term hope," he said instead.
Iraq
In his interview with Channel 4 News, Clegg also defended his right to speak personally while at the dispatch box in the House of Commons - as he did on Thursday this week.
Standing in for Prime Minister David Cameron, Clegg called the Iraq war "illegal", and said that Yarl's Wood detention centre would close.
The government later clarified his comments, saying only the family unit at Yarl Wood would close - and stressing that Clegg's comments were his personal opinions on Iraq, not the government's.
Clegg on the Iraq War
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: You learnt a lesson at the Dispatch Box this week, you can’t really say what you think, you have to speak for the government rather than your own personal opinions on things like the legality of the Iraq War.
Nick Clegg: I disagree on some things as hugely important and divisive as the Iraq war. People are still debating the Second World War, the Boer War. This is a debate that will run and run and run.
I feel very strongly about it, my party does , it opposed the decision to go to war. I’ve always been clear that my personal opinion is that the legal basis was not justified for going into war. That wasn’t the view of the previous government. This government, the coalition government doesn’t take a view on the legality of it but I don’t think its right for me to enter into government and to somehow completely airbrush out well known personal views that I’ve held for a very long time.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Didn’t the speaker say that you’ve got to answer questions as the deputy prime minister rather than your own personal opinions…he’s firmly of the view that you have to set aside your own personal opinions in that situation.
Nick Clegg: Well I’m a deputy prime minister but I’m also a human being who feels with great conviction about certain things. I don’t think politics is well served by politicians falling utterly silent on things they personally are well known to feel strongly about. It was quite obvious to anyone outside the slightly odd world of Westminster that it was quite obvious that what I was doing was repeating something about which I have strong personal views in a way that wasn’t binding on the government as a whole.
A Labour party spokeswoman told Channel 4 News: "This is completely farcical. Here we have a deputy prime minister speaking at the dispatch box yet he claims he is not speaking on behalf of the government.
"This is yet more evidence of a lack of collective decision making and raises the question of whether we can really believe anything they are saying."
