It is worth pointing out, over and over again, that this is EXACTLY what the Liberal Democrats did in 2010. They had one economic policy in their manifesto and campaigning, which was a broadly similar pace of deficit reduction to the one proposed by Labour, and with added flexibility if the economy was worse than expected, and then in coalition did a 180 turn and supported an entirely different one.

Why not try it again, eh? It has worked so well.

ps Does anyone else remember Nick Clegg RIDICULING Osborne for suggesting you cut spending in a recession, and yet that is what he now accepts.

I agree with you that I think there are some people who are considering a pact and are just not coming clean at the moment. Stephen and Mark are in this camp I am afraid to say. Consider Stephen’s incredibly partisan post today about the Levenson Inquiry and his consistent advice to Tories

I think it would split the LD clearly but this will happen anyway after the next election.

This is also the logic of Danny Alexander’s idea of an extended the agreement running past the next election.

Speaking purely from the standpoint of what will deliver the most LD MPs at the next election this is probably the most sensible course of action open to the LDs.

At which point some people may point out Stephen hasn’t said that (explicitly), and no, he hasn’t, but I am reading between the lines here.

If you wanted to stand on a coalition platform, then a coalition 2.0 agreement would be an excellent place to start. If you intended to try to get back to any sort of credible “equidistant” stance between Labour and the Tories in 2015, then a coalition agreement 2.0 does not make any sense.

I support the tax increases and spending reductions needed to eliminate the structural deficit i.e. that part of the deficit that would remain when the economy is operating at full employment

To maintain aggregate demand during the period the restructuring is being undertaken to 2017 – capital spending on infrastructure and borrowing to fund the cyclical shortfall in government revenues is necessary. Spending on infrastructure and job creation must be planned to accelarate as the reductions in departmental revenue expenditure deepen.

Economic growth and a return to full employment is an essential element of returning the public finances to a state of health. Cyclical borrowing will not decrease significantly without aggressive policies to stimulate growth. We are running out of supply side measures and now need to concentrate on fiscal measures. Why this should be seen as anyway controversial is beyond me. The alternative is an internal devaluation i.e. a very long period of stagnation and falling living standards.

“Much has changed in the last two years. Most significantly, the fiscal austerity that most of us thought painfully necessary to eradicate the deficit in five years has been blown off course by the Eurozone crisis. As a result, Plan A has already morphed into Plan B+ by default, with slowing economic growth compelling a more drawn-out deficit reduction strategy. ”

The Eurozone is obviously affecting us, but i think it’s the bonkers and economically wrongheaded approach to deficit reduction instead of keynesian growth policies that is keeping us at essentially zero economic growth. More spending on vital national infrastructure, not least desperately needed social housing, would create jobs, reduce the deficit in the medium term, and create enormous social good. I thought Clegg believed in that before May 2010 (because he said so) – but it turns out he didn’t at all. This lie of his, perpetrated first on his own party and then the country, is the key to why he has signed us up to all the rest of the Tory cr*p that we – the party and the country – have to swallow on a daily basis.

I was a supporter of proportional representation even before I joined the Liberal Party in the 1970s. My politics are to the left in many ways, but I big reason for me joining the Liberals rather than Labour was that the Liberal Party was the only major party which supported electoral reform. So I fully recognise and accept the argument made about 23% and 9% and 36%, but the British people by and large do not. When they had the chance last year, they voted against that argument. I believe they were wrong to do so, but I was on the losing side.

Unfortunately, when Liberal Democrats go on about this sort of thing it is, by and large, written off as just self-serving. They don’t seem quite to see that when Labour and the Conservatives argue for FPTP, that too is self-serving. But the villains of the piece are Labour. That is why I say again and again that a “No” vote was a vote FOR this government, because I want to make it quite clear that those Labour politicians who supported “No” were propping up the Tories in a way more fundamental than the Liberal Democrats are. By opposing electoral reform they propped up the Tories not just now, but for a generation in the future, because so long as we have FPTP we will have Tories enjoying the distortion it gives in their favour. Apparently there were some Labour politicians on the “Yes” side. Were there? If so, they were so feebly on that side that I don’t think anyone noticed. So I blame them as well for being so feeble,

So far as I am concerned, that ends the line you are trying. If the British people though there was something wrong with a government that is dominated by one party though that party had only 36% of the total vote, they had in the referendum the chance to show that by voting “Yes” to electoral reform. Although the electoral reform proposed in the referendum was a a small one, most people on either side agreed it was a first step towards the introduction of proper STV – if the people agreed to it, it suggested they wanted a change and they then might want further change. Part of the line of the “No” campaign was to oppose AV on the “slippery slope” argument, since much of what they said was really more a criticism of proportional systems than of AV. Almost every commentator interpreted the two-to-one win by “No” as a rejection of all change to the electoral system, as an end to any chance that proportional representation will be introduced in our lifetimes. I do not remember reading a single comment article anywhere in the published media which interpreted the victory by “No” as meaning “No because AV is not enough of a reform – we want more”. Nor do I recall any published letter or other reply to this commentary from a “No” voter complaining about being misrepresented by the claims the “No” vote was a vote which ruled out all electoral reform.

The government we have results from the weakening of representation of the third party and the strengthening of representation of the first party. That distortion was enough to rule out a coalition of the second party and third party. It also very much weakened the third party in negotiating a coalition with the first party. So while FPTP in the 2010 general election did not quite give government by one party, its distortion worked almost to do that. FPTP in 2010 did just what its supporters in the referendum of 2011 said it does and said was the best thing about it. And, by two-to-one, the British people voted to agree with them.

Therefore, so far as I am concerned, the referendum in 2011 was a vote of confidence in the government we have now, a vote to endorse that government, which is indeed being very decisive on deficit reduction, it has decided its strategy and is keeping to it. I believe the British people were given enough information to make up their mind, and so they did. I did not and do not agree with them, but as a democrat I must accept their decision. So far as I am concerned, anyone who voted “No” in the referendum voted for THIS government in the shape it takes, and therefore have no moral right to complain about it. Anyone who did not vote and therefore let “No” win should also shut up – you had your chance to vote against this government by voting against the electoral system which gave it to us, but you did not.

And to any “No” voters who say “I didn’t see it that way”, all I can say is “Tough – next time THINK when you vote”.

I don’t remember a referendum on the economy in 2011. There were LE but extrapolating that to an economic referendum is a little ambitious and anyway you could say Labour did better than the Tories

I think you are also mistaken in your idea of ‘educating people on democracy’ – firstly I think this is a little arrogant and secondly I think 2010 LD voters would have an issue on accepting this idea of having only a small influence on the Tories – I know I do. The Tories only gained 36% of the vote compared to the LD 23% – that to me is not so huge a difference that the LD should capitulate to the Tories.

The LD have the power to prevent Tory legislation which is not in the Coalition Agreement and should be more prepared to use it – perhaps if the LD in Government stood up and said that we only have 9% or so of the seats but represent 23% of the population on votes it would emphasise the inequity of FPTP and also show those of us voters who accept mathematically the reality of the coalition but don’t accept that way it has been practiced, that the LD do have a separate identity and a strength of purpose.

What you are saying seems to be that now we are in a coalition with the Conservatives we have no choice but to stay in it for ever. Had the general election of 2010 been slightly different we might have found a Labour-LibDem coalition to be the only viable government. Would you then say we should stay in coalition with Labour forever?

We need to educate the people of this country on democracy and so make more clear what our position is. We have an influence on the current government, but it is a small one, as reflects the will of the people expressed in 2010 and 2011. We are not “happy” with this government, because it is not a government of our party, it is a government predominantly of another party which is very different from ours. Our position is that Britain needs a government with a secure majority, therefore we have accepted this compromise – there was no other choice because there was no other viable government with a secure majority. Not to have accepted this compromise would have damaged this country due to the ensuing instability, and would have been arrogant seeing as how we obtained less than a quarter of the votes and so should not be in a position to dictate. Even if we had been, as we said before the election, the fairest choice should we really hold the balance would have been to go with the will of the people and opt to support a government led by the party which they by their votes made the largest party. So, should the situation be the other way round after the next general election, we would endorse a Labour-led government. That would not mean we had converted to full agreement with Labour Party policy, it would mean just that we accept the will of the people.

If the people of this country want a government in which our policies dominate, then they have to vote for us. That one is surely quite simple.

“The reason is that the Coalition’s constutional reform programme isn’t simply imperfect. It isn’t that it’s quite good but could be better. It is that what the Coalition is doing (and not doing) is precisely what I am involved in politics to oppose. I have been arguing against British entrapment in the Single European State, against an elected Second Chamber, against proportional representation, against the doctrines of Human Rights for more than twenty years. I did so when these were ideas of just the Liberals and Social Democrats; I did so when they were propagated by New Labour; and I continue to do so now the Cameroons advance them. The Coalition, with its constitutional reform programme, makes itself my political enemy. I am not simply disappointed that it isn’t doing things exactly as I want. Rather, it is trying to do exactly what I am in politics to object to.” ( http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thecolumnists/2012/04/andrew-lilico-its-not-stubborn-oppositionalism-to-oppose-fundamentally-anti-conservative-long-lastin.html )

I feel exactly the same – only about different things; probably the ones Mr. Lilico is 85% in favour of.

At the risk of stating the obvious, paying public sector workers less for working in deprived areas will lead to (a) lower quality staff working in those deprived areas (b) an increased wealth divide between regions through positive feedback – i.e. decreasing aggregate demand for the private sector in poorer regions (c) savings in public expenditure, meaning lower taxes for the rich (does anyone really think it would lead to increased spending on public sector workers in expensive areas of the country!?). Those are the three reasons why Cameron and his government want it.

The right of the party told us we should sign up because Tory policy would work and we’re benefit from that in 2015. That “fact” has changed, hasn’t it?

Does that apply to the Tories as well?

Can you show me the paragraph that says

‘Top down reorganisation of the health service and increased privatisation’

Isn’t that the logic of coalition with a much larger party?

For the period 2010-2015 you are supporting an economic policy that is a compromise, worked out between the Lib Dems and the Tories. And as we’re always being told, as the Tories have so many more MPs we must expect their views to have greater weight.

After 2015 it’s very unlikely that you’ll be in coalition with the Tories. If your policies as a separate party won’t be any different from the coalition’s, what’s the point of being a separate party? And in the unlikely event of your being in coalition with Labour, obviously the negotiated compromise would be very different from the present one.