Lib Dems see silver lining in Tories’ cloud

From today’s Times (£):

The string of problems hitting the Tories could save the Liberal Democrats from a catastrophic meltdown in this Thursday’s local elections, party chiefs claimed yesterday. The Lib Dems are still expecting to lose up to half their 650 council seats in England and Wales as voters continue to blame Nick Clegg for joining the coalition. They could do even worse in Scottish local elections. But Gerald Vernon-Jackson, leader of Liberal Democrat councillors in England and Wales, said that in the past two weeks there had been signs on the doorstep that voters were blaming the coalition’s current woes on the Conservatives rather than their partners.

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7 Comments

  • John Roffey 30th Apr '12 - 6:44pm

    Surely even more reason to abandon the Tories to their self-inflicted wounds?

  • Toby MacDonnell 30th Apr '12 - 7:38pm

    The incumbent is bound to be hit in difficult economic times. Opting out of government because our polls are slipping is opting out of responsibility: if won’t do it, who will? Labour? The Greens?

  • Patrick Smith 1st May '12 - 8:07am

    What is required are solid benefits felt by the poorest members in the community as a direct result of Liberal Democrats in government.The excellent leadership from our DPM, in the most important task of rescuing the British Economy where confidence had fallen to an all time low under Labour`s profligate spending, is the cause celebre.

  • Simon Hughes and Lorely Burt have tried to distance the party from this Tory problem. However, Clegg’s ‘parroting’ of Cameron’s line puts us back alongside the Tories.
    I wonder what it will take for Clegg to show some ‘gumption’ and realise that there are times when a moral stand is not just the ‘right thing’ but the ‘political thing’ to do.

  • Peter Watson 1st May '12 - 1:48pm

    @Patrick Smith
    “the most important task of rescuing the British Economy where confidence had fallen to an all time low under Labour`s profligate spending, is the cause celebre.”
    This is the same profligate spending that in 2007 George Osborne promised to match (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6975536.stm).
    This is the same profligate spending that in 2005 we agreed with (https://www.libdemvoice.org/labour-ed-balls-lib-dems-economy-austerity-spending-cuts-26614.html).
    Labour made a lot of bad decisions but we cannot keep harping back to the mess we inherited in 2010. I am not convinced that a Conservative government in the years before 2010 would have protected us from what happened: would they have imposed tight regulation of the banking sector? We need to demonstrate why our plan is the best one for the economy. Failing to achieve our forecasts for growth and going into a double-dip recession that we said would not happen; this damages our credibility regardless of who created the mess. Maybe we do need a Plan B.

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