“And I can confidently assure you that a vote for me will guarantee this much change”

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has been saying – over and over again last weekend – that he will not be the kingmaker after Election Day: the People, he says, will decide. He’s right – but I don’t think he knows how right he is.

From Autumn last year, Clegg has only really had one opinion poll thing going for him: a strong showing on ‘more likely to be honest’, where according to
ipsos mori in September 2009, he narrowly led both the other leaders on that dimension. Even so, 27% thinking you’re honest isn’t that hot.

On all other perceived personality traits, Nick Clegg scores badly – and the two worst are, fascinatingly, ‘best in a crisis’ and ‘could deal with the challenges of the 21st century’. So on perhaps the two most relevant voting criteria, Nick is not taken seriously at all.

Ah but (Libdems will argue) he’s been getting stronger since then. Well, not according to the Politicshome of 9th March, in which – although Clegg’s personal score is still positive, it’s 20% lower than it was.

I think there’s a very good reason for this. The last two weeks have seen Clegg playing games on left, right, deficit, growth, maybe Cameron, maybe Brown, Labour’s a carcass, the Tories are a con, I’m a tart, and I’m not going to come off the fence. But chiefly, he’s come across as a bloke who’s just as much of a slippery Machiavellian as the other two.

A classic case, in fact, of “I think you’ll win – and if you do, I’ll be right behind you”.

Nick has blown the one trump card he had: integrity. I predict it will cost him dear. And if a source comes up with the goods later on today, I suspect I might even be able to quantify that.

Stay tuned.