Oh hell no- what NC said about WW2

[atlantis]

Yes, it's true i'm a conservative voter at this election.

Yes, it's true I've done a little NC bashing because I don't believe in some of his parties policies and his holier than thou image he's trying to convey.

But hell NO , if this article is true this man had better not come to my local area because if I see him on the street I'll do more than egg him..

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267921/GENERAL-ELECTION-2010-Nick-Clegg-Nazi-slur-Britain.html

"Nick Clegg has claimed that the British people have ?a more insidious cross to bear? than Germany over the Second World War.
In an astonishing attack on our national pride, the Liberal Democrat leader said we suffered from ?delusions of grandeur? and a ?misplaced sense of superiority? over having defeated the horrors of Nazism.
He said we found it hard to accept that Germany had become a ?vastly more prosperous nation? and that ?we need to be put back in our place?.
His views, outlined in a newspaper article when he was a member of the European Parliament...

The passionately pro-Europe Mr Clegg revealed his views in an article for the Guardian newspaper in 2002.

?Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche,? Mr Clegg wrote, before attacking Britain?s approach to the war.

?All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still.
?A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.?

I wholeheartedly agree with this;

"Tory MP Nicholas Soames, grandson of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, said: ?These views will disgust people the length and breadth of the country. They show that Nick Clegg is unfit to lead his party, let alone the country.
?They are an insult to the memory of Britain?s war dead and to a time when the British public all pulled together for the common good.

'They prove that Mr Clegg shares the European view of Britain rather than the British view.?

I am disgusted. This isn't a case of NC bashing, his views are clear, it's revolting.

as far as I can see he was not criticising the way the war was fought or anyone who fought in the war or anyone who suffered in the war, so I'm not sure what Nicholas Soames is whiffling on about

he was talking about prevailing attitudes in this country since the war

what's so revolting about that? are we as a nation beyond any criticism?why?

I agree with every word of what NC wrote (as quoted in OP) and am thrilled at the prospect of someone with such unabashed internationalist views getting near the corridors of power.

So there.

I can't imagine that a piece like that in a paper like that will make a difference to the voting intentions of many people!

In context it makes perfect sense & the DM (& Fatty Soames) playing this "he's no Churchill" card shouldn't do NC any harm (I hope).

This was from the Daily Mail? The newspaper that famously declared "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" in the 30s?

I'd say the Mail has a lot more to be ashamed about concerning Germany than Clegg ever could.

I figure the Daily Fail must be getting desperate if it's reaching this low to smear Nick Clegg. His comments seem entirely reasonable when given their proper context - criticise the behaviour not the child country; "Germans" does not equal "Nazis" and we really should have moved on from that by now.

If the Germans working at the Motorola factory started two world wars and killed millions of our ancestors then yes, we should mention it. But I'm going to stick my neck out and guess that they didn't.

England v Germany is not seen as the major football event in Germany. They are far far far far more bothered about Germany v The Netherlands and faintly bemused that the English get so worked up about the Germany match.

The Daily Mail is such a dreadful rag. The writer/s of that piece should hang their heads in shame and stop calling themselves journalists.

Thanks for the link to the full article, Anastasia. Mr Clegg comes across as intelligent and eloquent - just what we need in a PM.

atlantis - now you've read the original Guardian article, do you have any further comments to make?

Moros, thank you for bringing that up! OP I guess you are unaware that the great Daily fail Mail was supportive of the Nazi's in the 30's, and whilst it's toned down the fascism, the right wing xenophobic misogenistic agenda is plain to see?

Clegg wasn't being unpatriotic, he was being a modern European, and showing more intellectual freedom of thinking than I'm afraid most Mail readers appear to express. Actually read the original article, not the Mail's editing and you can see the smear campaign for what it is.

Pathetic the way the right wing rags have set their attack dogs on Nick Clegg. Lets hope it backfires and pushes voters in the other direction. If this is the worst they can come with to smear him then Im certainly not changing my vote. Our little town is awash with Lib Dem posters.

But it is true, since WW2 the role of Britain on the international stage has diminished and we are on the back foot economically compared to a lot of European nations, and now emergent economies.

And complacencey about "British is best" is what killed our car and motorbike industries as we failed to innovate the product and were trounced by Japan who actually looked at what people wanted to buy (key ignition instead of kick start for bike, better trim and engine size for cars etc).

I think most countries suffer from delusions of grandeur. Every politician, monarch, newspaper, tv station is "bigging up" the role of their own country/countrymen in any given event. This is not just the case for Britain. It is a way of building up national pride and pride in achievements.

Good for NC - our future is with Europe and it is really refreshing to have a Party leader who can see that.

And getting a buffoon like Nicholas Soames to comment was a spectacular misfire, he's not exactly cut from the same cloth as his grandfather, is he.

When I read the title of this thread, I thought that Clegg had launched in a deep political analysis of what lead to ww2 and was doing a bit of mea culpa

oh calm down.

What d'you think Nick Clegg will make us all do? Dress up in Nazi uniforms?

It's refreshing to see someone in mainstream politics call the English on their stupid attitudes to Germany and the Germans. I blame the Sun. The Murdoch press has kept this berserk anti-German sentiment alive, because it's fun (for them) and it sells papers. It is very stupid however, so probably best dumped.

From a Guardian article y'day:

'Clegg's political activities at Cambridge, where he studied anthropology, stretched to organising a campaign for indigenous people. His favourite academic work then was that of Prof Keith Hart on the informal economy and how the seemingly economically inactive in less developed countries were actually economically active in different ways... "Nick was always looking abroad. He wasn't party-political and didn't spend his time on student politics. He was much more interested in the rest of the world than us."

When he did his thesis at the University of Minnesota, it was on the "deep green" movement and the idea that humans' effect on the environment was not being appreciated. Clegg says it was just as memorable in underscoring to him that Britain had to realise its place in the world... It could be that this driving political force has the potential to drive a wedge between him and the Daily Mail. Dutch mother, half-Russian father, Spanish wife, German adviser and a speaker of five languages.'

How marvellous. All of it

Hurrah for NC, not pandering to outdated anti-European, xenophobic ideas. I agree with animula - racists are doing exactly the opposite of honouring their ancestors, who fought against that very thing.

A PM who can speak foreign languages fluently - now that would be a thing.

I liked Ken Clarke till he turned into a minority of about 1 in his party!

isn't he brillient policywonk! I LOVE that he is a politician we can be proud of. One that doesn't bang on about broken Britain- of course, the right wing press won't say how negative THAT sounds! Bloody Tories, I have never actually feared them, as I do now.

I don't disagree with anything Nick Clegg has ever said.

Personally find it vile to hear people chanting "two world wars and one world cup" whenever England plays Germany.

That chant, IMO, is more disrespectful to WW2 veterans than anything Nick Clegg has ever said.

(first line should be anyhthing NC has ever said on this subject!)

yes, there's a good quote somewhere about how insulting he thinks it is to the people of Britain to describe them as "broken" - obviously the DM isn't going to print that!