by Anthony Painter

Nick Clegg showed Cameron how it’s done when it comes to entering the fray on the fraught politics of identity. In Luton, as opposed to Munich, at a calmer time, as opposed to the day of an EDL homecoming rally, with balance, as opposed to lecturing and hectoring, with the intention of contributing to the debate, rather than simply catching headlines, Nick Clegg gave his textured analysis of how the politics of identity is bending our culture and lives.

His reading of the Searchlight Fear and Hope report published earlier this week was spot on. He understands that the middle ground of identity politics is occupied not by liberals, as our traditional notions of the centre would support, but by the culturally concerned and economically insecure. David Cameron erected the straw man of “state multiculturalism”, which doesn’t exist in anything other than the popular mythology of 1980s municipalism. Nick Clegg knocked it down and instead made a cogent case for a diverse but not divided version of multiculturalism built around strong and shared values. (more…)