This was the lovely cover of the new edition of the Liberator Song Book, circulated at last night’s Glee Club.
One of the hosts quipped during the proceedings:
You know, at this point we could really do with someone telling a ten minute joke.
There was such a void.
We just needed Paddy to walk in and announce that he was telling his joke:
For positively the last time.
Paddy, you are sorely missed.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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7 Comments
There have been a couple of occasions in my life where I have seen a political decision and been correct in my instant assessment of the consequences.
One was the Poll Tax, which i immediately thought was a huge miscalculation by Thatcher
Another was the Iraq War, which needed a UN resolution.
The third was breaking the Pledge, where I could not believe how our MPs could not see how disastrous that would be.
People will have seen on these pages that I am not keen on the Revoke policy and would have preferred a more democratic version. However I do have a feeling it may have caught the mood of a majority of voters (including some soft Leavers), and given the small likelihood of it actually happening we will be ok.
Meanwhile we have had about 1000 times more media coverage at this Conference than the last one, which has to be good for us.
Sorry, that comment was really intended for the last thread where this was being disussed!
I had great respect for Paddy. I wonder what he would have thought about the current party policy regarding Brexit.
The democratic response would have been to respect the will of the people just as those who wanted to leave accepted the Remain result in 1975.
Accepting a result that you do not agree with is to respect our system of democracy. Rejecting the result is to reject democracy itself. The party seems not to understand or care that it has taken such an extreme position but it will learn the consequences. Voters are unlikely to support the destruction of democracy.
Peter: 41% of all voters according to YouGov incl 27% of Tory voters and 58% of Labour voters, and even 17% of Leave voters think this policy is entirely legitimate.
The madness of the crowd does not make it right.
If large chunks of the population start ignoring the results of democratic votes it will quickly lead to anarchy.
Peter – you don’t need to wonder wistfully what Paddy would’ve thought. In August 2018 he said on twitter, “The argument against a People’s Vote on the final deal is simple. The people cannot be allowed to find out they were lied to and must not be permitted to change their mind.”
Obviously I can’t say for sure he would have backed the Revoke line we agreed this week, but I think he would. I certainly can’t imagine it would have made him backflip completely and agree with you that the deeply flawed 2016 referendum result is sacrosanct.
Peter: the only way we will get to enact Revoke is if we win a General Election. If ‘The People’ all want to leave, they can vote Tory or Brexit Party.
How is that undemocratic?