7 Comments

• fdp100 16th Apr '10 - 10:23am

  The BBC said that the debate was boring and never mentioned that the polls showed that Nick Clegg had won, so there! Thank goodness for right wing newspapers. They all carried the news, perhaps because they are more anti-Brown than pro-Cameron. Its a game of 3 halves. I hope Nick does as well in the other two.

• Tom Jenkins 16th Apr '10 - 10:31am

  Another thing they could do is wear the #iagreewithnick tshirt: http://bit.ly/aFX9Nn

  Perhaps you could tweet that out.

  Cheers,

  Tom.

• Matt Hardy 16th Apr '10 - 10:49am

  People are asking to print some shirts and stickers for “I Agree With Nick” slogan on them somebody should make the design and get them printed .Twitter is full of such request when you search #iagreewithnick.

  Regards
  Matt

• maehara 16th Apr '10 - 11:37am

  1 & 2 done.
  3? Would love to, as would several other people I know in my part of the country, but sadly the LibDems don’t field candidates in Northern Ireland.

  …and yes, I’m aware of Alliance, but for all their liberal and cross-community credentials they’re still part of a political system that at least some of us over here would like to put behind us. Westminster is about national politics, let us vote for national parties.

• Felix Holt 16th Apr '10 - 2:15pm

  1 and 4 done (for many years now!)
  Can’t do 3 as am exiled across the pond! Don’t have twitter account, but will try and see if I can work out how to add a LibDem bird to my personal webpage (but as that is off my University site I’m not sure they’d approve…)

• John Roffey 16th Apr '10 - 8:11pm

  There is one thing that the policy team can do to ensure Nick can deliver more of the same at the next debate – soften up on the desire to join the Euro.

  Having won this debate, the other leaders are certain to be looking long and hard at Lib/Dem policies to identify those which do not chime with the voters. It has been clearly demonstrated that Greece’s problems would be significantly reduced if they could devalue [quantitive ease]. Knowing the financial problems the UK faces once the General Election is over, many voters will realise that joining the Euro would be a millstone around the next Chancellors neck.

  Onwards and upwards!

• Maehara 17th Apr '10 - 2:52am

  Maehara,

  As the Alliance Party’s parliamentary candidate in East Antrim, I’d like to invite you to join the Alliance team and take an active part in building a liberal society in Northern Ireland.

  As liberals, we ought to be comfortable with decentralisation, diversity and interdependence. Liberals belive that political parties emerge from the bottom up, not the top down. Indeed, in Great Britain, the traditional two-party model of politics is broken beyond repair, and even the three-party model politics is feeling the strain. More people in Great Britain will vote for parties outside the top two, and indeed outside the top three, next month than at any time in history. Trying to bolt a failing system on to our distinctive culture and society is a recipe for failure. As the Tory/UUP pact is about to find out with a vengence – it’s one thing to talk big about changing politics, but Fermanagh-South Tyrone shows how empty the UCUNF lies are. Having scared off their handful of Catholic candidates, David Cameron is promoting a 100% Protestant, 100% Unionist slate in Northern Ireland.

  Even in the aftermath of the Hunger Strike, Alliance has always had the courage to offer people West of the Bann a real alternative, even if not always one meeting electoral acclaim. It took the Tories less than 18 months to dip their oar in the dirtiest, most bigoted, waters of Northern Ireland politics, with talks at Hatfield House organised by the Orange Order and sectarian pacts in Fermanagh and Tyrone. We must build non-tribal politics in Northern Ireland, but we must do that as liberals, always cognisant of the free choices our fellow citizens choose to make.

  There is a distinctive liberal tradition in Great Britain, which emerged from its history and culture. And there is a distinctive liberal tradition in Northern Ireland, which emerged from our history and culture. While the Liberal Democrats are rightly proud of being one of the world’s largest liberal parties, do not neglect the different and distinctive contribution Alliance makes to world liberalism – not least in other deeply divided societies where parties in secure Western European democracies have little of relevance to say. We have maintained our role through decades of violence and through a peace process that seemed often aimed at maintaining people comfortably in their tribal laagers. Do not underestimate how important Alliance’s very existence is to liberals in societies where ethnic violence is a reality – as it was to us barely a decade ago. Even liberals in such placid places as Belgium split along ethnic lines – while Alliance remained a proudly mixed party through decades of terrorism, bigotry and violence. Would any other party select the son of an IRA man as their candidate in a predominatly Unionist constituency? Yes, even Sinn Féin, desperately attempting to soft-pedal for SDLP votes! They wouldn’t, but I am Alliance’s candidate in East Antrim because we put people before labels and talent before tradition.

  It isn’t always easy being an Alliance activist, but we’re in this for the long haul. We did what most pundits considered the unthinkable in electing Anna Lo as Northern Ireland’s first politician from an ethnic minority background. As one of two openly gay Alliance candidates in this election – as compared with zero from the five tribal parties – I can assure you that is not the last of Northern Ireland politics’ glass ceilings we intend to shatter. David Ford has taken on not only the most difficult political job in Western Europe but that most likely to lead to assassination, not because he likes living under armed guard, but because only Alliance can be fair, and be seen to be fair, in running the Justice system in a divided society.

  Naomi Long has every chance of beating Peter Robinson in East Belfast and becoming Alliance’s first ever elected MP at this election. And over the next generation, Alliance will be in the vanguard of building a non-tribal and genuinely liberal political system in Northern Ireland.

  Don’t buy into the fantasy that a “normal” British party system can be bolted on to a society where over 40% of the population don’t even regard themselves as British. Instead, join us in building a society where all our advantages – our superbly well-educated population, our strategic position between the European, British and American influenced worlds, and our spectacular natural environment – are harnessed to make Northern Ireland the best place in the world to live in.