John Fleming meets Norman Baker

The writer and comedy promoter John Fleming has blogged about meeting Norman Baker, the former Liberal Democrat minister and MP for Lewes.

Here is part of that post:

"You seem to be a terribly principled man,” I said. “Don’t you compromise your principles by talking to and doing deals with shits?"

"Well, otherwise,” he replied, “they run the show themselves. People asked why didn’t I resign, why didn’t the LibDems resign from the government? The answer is because all the people you don’t like would be left there and we’d be gone. Do you really want to hand the government over to the people you disagree with most?"

"So you’re a left wing LibDem," I said. 

"Yes.” 

"The LibDems have got lost somewhere," I said. "I don’t know where they are in the spectrum."

"We need them," he replied. "We need a liberal voice." 

"So what’s the book you’ve just written? – Against The Grain?"

"It is,” he said, “a political memoir. 1987-2015."

"Why write it?" I asked. "To justify your time in office?" 

"No, to close a door on it. And so the public know what happened. It’s the first Coalition book and shows how it worked.

I am currently enjoying Against the Grain and will review it here one day.