Nick Clegg’s Lords Reform embarrassment

July 11th 2012 in an email to Lib Dem activists (emphasis ours):

“the Coalition Government is committed to reforming the House of Lords. And we have every intention of delivering it.

The Liberal Democrats have worked closely with our Conservative partners to bring forward a Bill they could support. We have been reasonable and looked at acceptable compromises at every stage. That is why we agreed to withdraw today’s timetabling motion, to allow the Conservative team in Government to take more time over the summer to talk to their backbench colleagues.

When we return in the autumn to vote on this again, we fully expect the Conservatives to deliver this crucial part of the coalition deal – as we have delivered other coalition policies…We have been waiting for Lords Reform for 100 years. Today we took a huge step towards delivering it.“

August 6th (26 days later):

“The Conservative party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform and, as a result, part of our contract has now been broken”

Both Cameron and Clegg made to look pretty weak by comparing those two statements…