There is only one sensible line about a hung parliament – we will work with any party that does a-e (how about more power to voters (STV), reducing inequality, the environment, tax reform, making prison and courts work)

and yes we will take cabinet seats – for the first time since 1945, because we want to be at the heart of Government becasue we passionately wish to change they way this country is run. That is to say we use the debate as a chance to get our messgae accross.

If Clegg even thinks he is likely to get a chance to prop up a Tory Govt in the event of a hung parliament, he’s a pratt, Labour would abstain and the Lib Dem votes will be irrelevant. After basically 100 years out of power ther party still doesn’t get hung parliaments.

Oaten was of course very keen on coalition before his troubles!

Whilst I certainly wouldn’t want the Tories to win the next general election (and my money is still on either a hung parliament or a one-figure Labour majority), I realise that it wouldn’t be a complete disaster for us; even if Nick did make the silly mistake of ‘over-supporting’ Cameron.

Roll on the Henley by-election, it might be a three-hour train journey from my beloved Manchester, but I still want to give the Tories a run for their money!

The first point to make is that this article was slanted towards the Tories and although Steven said it would apply to Labour too that was only an assumption not set out in stone. I think we should judge it on a) who the largest party is and b) who is willing to work with us to get some of our program acted on…with b being more important than a.

“Clearer idea of what people want”? Do you just mean “One party will be bigger than another”? If so, why do we need to wait before saying that. Unless of course, you don’t want to work with the largest party, but with one in particular, or neither. In which case, you should say that too.

Refusing to say so now suggests that you believe formal coalition/cabinet positions with one or t’other is the best option – and what’s worse, that we don’t really care who with, as long as we’re in Government, that we are hedging our bets, which *looks* opportunist whether it is or not.

We certainly look that way if we keep saying that we will decide what to do after the results.

That may not be the current reality, but we need to be clear about the rationale behind the principle to take the high ground on the issue.

Are we so desperate that we would do anything to get into government, or will we submit to the will of the people whatever the outcome of an election?

Would we refuse ‘supply and confidence’ from either of the other parties? Would Labour and Conservative refuse to give S&C and force a new election, or be forced to accept a grand coalition?

We all know about Cook-Maclennan but isn’t that with the benefit of hindsight and post-election evidence?

No, because Cook-Maclennan – in which we pledged to work with a Labour government on a joint cabinet committee even if Labour had a majority (which of course is precisely what we did) – was published before, er, the election. The abandonment of equidistance was two years before the election.

My reason for mentioning Chard was not to suggest it was an explicit endorsement of Labour but to demonstrate that throughout the 1992-1997 period, Ashdown was working on a sustained project of positioning the Lib Dems as Labour’s allies. He had his criticisms, to be sure. But Chard was critiquing a Smith-era Labour Party and even then he was making early signals of a future realignment of the left.

To suggest he spent the five years running up to the 1997 election not clearly indicating he would back a Labour government is fanciful and ludicrous.

I’ve read the Chard speech, It’s doesnt really provide much in the way of saying “we will form a coalition with Labour to get rid of the Tories”, instead it says that Labour has to learn. It even states,

“Let me stress, I want a ferment of ideas, not the clicking of calculators; this is about putting together an agenda for our country for the next election, not adding together opposition voters in various constituencies at the last. Indeed, I do not believe that mathematically constructed pacts and alliances are the way forward, either for Liberal Democrats or for others. At best they would be a waste of precious time – at worst positively damaging. What is, however, in both our interest and that of the country, is to work with others to assemble the ideas around which a non-socialist alternative to the Conservatives can be constructed, with Liberal Democrats at the centre of the process and a reformed voting system as the starting point.”

We all know about Cook-Maclennan but isn’t that with the benefit of hindsight and post-election evidence?

In Chard he also says,

So, as we enter this new parliament, here are the tasks which I believe lie ahead for us Liberal Democrats. First, to continue to build our strength on the ground as an independent and distinctive force. Second, to continue our energetic and courageous pursuit of new ideas and new policies, drawing as much as possible on those outside our formal membership as well as inside it. And third, to be prepared, not just to take part in it, but to provide leadership for the wider debate about the construction of post-socialist, non-Conservative Britain, confident in our own ideas, clear about our objectives, but flexible in our approach to others.

Not asking us to go back to our constituencies and ‘prepare for coalition’.

I am talking specifically about the folly of going into an election having made an explicit declaration that we will formally support one of the other parties.

Still, let’s hope this turns out not to be true.

Since no-one, not even the Torygraph, is suggesting that is true, I don’t think there is any danger of that happening.

Admittedly this is a difficult proposition fraught with dangers on all sides, but it is not impossible and nor is it less preferable than accepting an entrenched political system (as shown by the example of the FDP).

But that is no reason to be afraid, only an occasion to show the courage of your convictions.

We have always been bound together by a coherent set of aims because we represent an underlying unity of ideas – now we are no longer a party of protest we need to show we have the confidence to take it up to the next level.

I am talking specifically about the folly of going into an election having made an explicit declaration that we will formally support one of the other parties.

Still, let’s hope this turns out not to be true.

Chris Phillips

You seem to be one of those people who view Internet bulletin board discussions as a recreation, and set great store by “winning” the game.

Clearly you are in a better position than me to know that – I don’t use bulletin boards.

The problem is Chris, I can throw everything at you – Chard, the 1995 abandonment of equi-distance, the Cook-Maclennan Agreement, the clear understanding of 95% of the population that the Lib Dems would prop up Labour, the Ashdown Diaries which showed that Ashdown was not only in coalition talks but merger talks – and yet because I can’t find (can’t be bothered to be accurate) a specific quote to satisfy your narrow definition you think you can somehow claim to be right.

I’m not offering you the odd quote here or there – I’m presenting you with a mountain of evidence.

The Chard Speech – five years before the 97 election and even before the rise of Blair – had Ashdown explicitly stating that Labour would need the Lib Dems to form a government but that the modernisers in Labour were finally beginning to take hold. By 1997 we had a formal pre-election pact in the form of Cook-Maclennan. No party leader in history has done more than Ashdown to trail the idea of forming a coalition with another political party. If he didn’t use that precise form of words pre-97, it is at best irrelevant, at worst an example of his rather unfortunate habit to dissemble and leave people in the dark. That habit proved to be very destructive towards the end of his tenure. Either way, no-one at the time was under any illusions.