By the looks of it over a thousand demonstrators have gathered in Smith Square, outside the building being used today for party talks, demanding the party sticks to its guns on PR:
Photo via Will Straw.
Meanwhile, the latest news on the inter-party talks is that Liberal Democrat and Conservative teams will meet at 11am on Sunday morning in the Cabinet Office. The Liberal Democrat team includes a broad cross-section of political views from the Parliamentary party along with deep experience of similar negotiations at other levels of government: Danny Alexander, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne, David Laws and Andrew Stunell.
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21 Comments
Impressive to organise a flashmob at such short notice! Fingers crossed that the Tories will see the light on STV.
Who is organising this demo?
This looks like astro-turf to me – I’ve just seen Alex Hilton, from LabourList and a former Labour councillor directing people at this demo – so we have Labour activists demanding that the LibDems don’t ‘sell-out’ on PR? Physician heal thyself. It looks like genuine pro-reform supporters may be being used by the Labour Party to undermine our discussions with the Tories and bounce into talking to Brown.
The Lib Dems are a democratic party, and we can’t allow our processes to be hijacked by Labour activists.
The Tories will NEVER still the light, they are the Tories after all.
The Tories will drive this country deeper into chaos. Oh well, you reap what you sew as they say.
Lettuce sea, supporters of a Party which came third in both seats and cast vote but is now trying to shoehorn intself into Governance before either of the larger Parties; now call for the jiggering of the electoral system which will place their minority interests in Governance permanently.
Could be worse… you could be Scottish with a Party claiming to speak for you despite having come fourth in the Westminster elections both in seats and cast vote.
Glad to see that in the end the demo was run by Unlock Democracy an organisation I support – I hope though that they start demonstrating in front of the Tories & Labour aswell, rather than just the Lib Dems who for years have been the champions of the type of reform they are advocating.
I agree that the election system is messed up, but not because “the winning party didn’t get in”, but because 64% of people did not vote for Cameron and instead choose to vote for other parties, yet Cameron is declared the winner?
The genuine pro-reform protesters are off in Trafalgar Square, which you’d know if you payed the 165,000 strong Facebook group which formed in response to Nick’s performance at the first debate the care and attention it deserved. http://www.facebook.com/search/#!/group.php?gid=113749985304255
Why isn’t Jim Wallace included? I thought it was already established that he would be? Was the concern that the only two people currently kicking around with actual experience of coalition negotiations – David Steel and Jim Wallace – might be a little too concerned with the fact that coalition with the Tories would be damn near suicidal in Scotland and would only be worth it for the absolute guarantee of mulit-member STV?
P.S. – If anyone at Cowley Street (or JSH for that matter) is reading this, do encourage Labour to get a better grip of their media coverage; they’ve just been announced as having rejected and belittled advances from Alex Salmond which is pretty silly in the current situation.
Nick Clegg has addressed the protesters, assuring them that he will continue to push for fundamental reform. Unfortunately I can’t find the footage (I heard a bit on the radio), and this article only has a couple of quotes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8669508.stm
@Duncan: David Laws is one of the Lib Dem representatives, and he was one of the key negotiators in Scotland when we formed our first coalition with Labour in Holyrood.
@Charles Anglin (the second): Hear hear! The organisers (as far as I know) are Take Back Parliament, an umbrella including the Electoral Reform Society and even our own Social Liberal Forum. Sign the petition (not directed exclusively at the Lib Dems but to all politicians!) here: http://www.takebackparliament.com/
Agree with Charles Anglin: Whilst this might have been a useful event, I hope the protests now go on to bother David Cameron about it too. He’s the one who’s not already on board!
Good on them; more outside pressure makes it harder to dismiss this as being just us trying to increase our number of MPs. As for bothering Cameron: that seems like a hopeless task. He’s not in a position to offer much on PR, without inspiring the rest of his party to destroy him.
Dan: Sure, Cameron’s not going to be able to offer much, but if it starts to look like there’s a real public mood for it, it might make it more difficult for him to please his party base by rejecting it outright.
Good protest, and go viral facebook email campaign. I was one of the 20,000 who signed this in the last 36 hours. Nick, please take note.
And full marks to Peter Facey for a good interview on the Beeb.
Manifestly NOT an astroturf. I’ve been a member of both this group and the one in Trafalgar a long time. I’d be there if I could, but I’m in Japan 🙁
Excellent to see this. Shove this kind of thing in the Tories’ faces, just to make them realize that a huge number of people thoroughly DISagree with their old politics agenda.
My proposed tactic for the Lib Dems: grasp this nettle. Get Labour to launch a coup to get rid of Brown, make the leader of Labour someone more paletable. Ally with Labour, SDLP, Alliance, Green, and maybe 1 or 2 others. It’s not an overall majority but it’s pretty darn close, and dare the tories, DUP, SNP and PC to vote down the coalition. It might not work, but it’s the best chance for reform, it’s the best hope the Lib Dems have, and at least they can go into the next election saying “we tried, and here are the Labour MPs that splintered from the alliance because they preferred their safe seats. Here is the Tory party which opposed reform. You might want to think about that when you cast your vote.”
Duncan, these were the “genuine protesters”. Billy Bragg who addressed the Trafalgar Square gathering, as did Peter Facey (Unlock Democracy) Jean Lambert (London MEP green) Ken Ritchie (Electoral Reform Society) and a representative of Operation Black Vote took the loud hailer at the end of the gathering and said he was going to walk to Smith Square where talks were taking place and invited those present to join him. And following the Pied Piper (BB) they did. I think BB gave the impression that the talks were LD/Tory but no matter if it shows the strength of feeling for PR.
I’m genuinely open minded about who Nick Clegg does a deal with. BUT if the Tories won’t do a deal with the Lib Dems on PR then Nick must do a deal with Labour. It’s that simple.
According to the BBC liveblog, they did go on to visit the Tories straight afterwards. Good!
Also, here’s Nick Clegg’s response in full: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Lib-Dem-Leader-Nick-Clegg-Addresses-Electoral-Reform-Protesters-Outside-Local-Government-House/Article/201005215628183?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15628183_Lib_Dem_Leader_Nick_Clegg_Addresses_Electoral_Reform_Protesters_Outside_Local_Government_House
(Sorry for that awful link! Someone had better tell Sky how to run a website – it’s almost as bad as the weblinks on the Lib Dem website…)
Take Back Parliament have the whole thing on YouTube, with a shorter link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwWhyv8OL14
Get a grip PR is not the only issue, what about the Economy, Civil Liberties, Defense or Taxation. The country is facing a huge amount of serious issues at the moment. Directing protests at Cameron would just make it impossible to offer anything without looking to his party like he had given in to a bunch of lefty protestors with megaphones.
Who is to say a Lab/Lib alliance would offer PR either? Remember the Jenkings report anyone? You trust Gordon’s deathbed conversion to change?