Nick Clegg, the Economy and the Environment

Nick Clegg, Susan Kramer (MP for Richmond Park) and the environmental campaigner Tony Juniper attracted a full house at the Duke Street Baptist Church in Richmond (Surrey) this evening, for a Question Time on the economy and the environment, chaired with characteristic panache by ‘University Challenge’s’ Bamber Gascoigne. This was a variation on the town hall meetings that Nick has been doing up and down the country, reaching out to many thousands of electors. Richmond being Richmond, it was all very well behaved (apart from the slight irritation of the three young women helpers of Richmond Conservative candidate Zak Goldsmith sitting immediately behind me, who chattered throughout the whole event).

Opp0sition to the third runway at Heathrow (in which Susan Kramer has been hyper-active) not surprisjngly surfaced as an issue almost immediately, but soon the evening settled down to a serious discussion of how we can marry economic and social justice with environmental responsibility at this time of financial retrenchment. Tony Juniper was particularly eloquent in expressing how proper environmental management (including house insulation) and changing one’s lifestyle can actually improve one’s quality of life, even when economic conditions are tight. Nick rightly endorsed Tony’s comment that we need to show China and India how to develop more environmentally by example, rather than by finger-pointing.

One questioner asked why the three main political parties don’t work together on vital issues such as climate change, to which Nick responded that the LibDems had in fact encouraged this as a strategy, but it failed. The only agreements possible were on the lowest common denominator, whereas the LibDems, as the most environmentally-friendly of the mainstream parties, wish to set higher standards. Altogether, the evening was a worthwhile exercise, which may well be repeated elsewhere in Britain, not necessarily with the same subjects (though they are two of the core themes of the forthcoming European election campaign).