18 Comments

• Edis 15th May '10 - 9:12am

  Wonder who is going to be left as our backbenchers and how they could organise themselves. The Tories after all will have the 1922 Committee as a kind of organised Party Within A Coalition party to publicise wider Tory issues… What will we do?

  I have some concern at so many of our members being on the payroll vote. Will there be an evolution of the tradition of trappist silence imposed on even junior ministers under collective responsibilty…?

• Mack 15th May '10 - 9:38am

  All those new ministers.! How edifying to see so many people sacrificing their principles for baubles. Say what you like about Labour but at least when it came to the crunch Blunkett, Reid, Falconer et al refused to sacrifice their principles. And they were good losers. They respected the umpire’s decision and left the crease when they were declared out.

• Frank Bowles 15th May '10 - 9:59am

  And we should mention (Lord) Jim Wallace as Advocate General for Scotland and Alistair Carmichael as Deputy Chief Whip. A good round up for Orkney and Shetland’s finest

• blanco 15th May '10 - 10:02am

  “Blunkett, Reid, Falconer” – the bastards responsible for disgusting illiberal policies at the home office and over Iraq?

  Refused to sacrifice their principles?

  They never had any.

  Congrats to the new Lib Dem ministers. They will achieve far more than the idiots promoted by New Labour.

• Edward 15th May '10 - 10:02am

  That’s right, Mack. Those Labour tribalists really did stick to their principles when they, eh, kept voting for Tony Blair all those times.

• Andrew Suffield 15th May '10 - 10:04am

  Getting Lynne Featherstone in somewhere was a good plan. Few MPs are quite that hyperactive, should shake loose some of the bureaucracy.

• RMc 15th May '10 - 10:07am

  Why no positions for Ed davey and Norman Lamb?

• blanco 15th May '10 - 10:14am

  @Mack

  Those “principled excellent men!” were the same ones who publicly villified the negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems last week WHILST THEY WERE STILL GOING ON, making any deal impossible. So your heroes destroyed the chances of a coalition, now you as their cheerleader are saying our ministers should be like them.

  Will you praise Hoon, Hewitt and Byers too?

• hugh p 15th May '10 - 10:25am

  Ed Davey appears to have been appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department of Business Innovation and Skills – surprising that he is only a PUS, but I guess that he could not be a Minister of State there since Vince is the Secretary of State for that Department. But it is certainly strange that there seems to be no position for Norman Lamb, and it is also odd that no LD ministers, even of the most junior status, have yet been announced for DEFRA and for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

• ChrisD 15th May '10 - 10:35am

  Mack, where was Labour when our last volume car maker was allowed to go bust as the bankers got rich on the back of the rest of us?

  New Labour or new Conservative party maybe?

• Duncan 15th May '10 - 11:05am

  @Mack – You can’t have it both ways. Either Labour were an honest broker in negotiations and the LibDems spurned them to choose the Conservatives or else Labour ‘had principles’ in its retreat to the opposition benches in which case the LibDem decision was the only thing ameliorating a Tory government and is non-culpable. Get it right!

  My understanding was:
  Ed Davey got a Transport ministry
  Lord Wallace was Scotland in the Lords
  and David Heath as deputy leader of the commons with Alasdair Carmichael as Deputy Chief Whip

• Duncan 15th May '10 - 11:08am

  Sorry I don’t mean Ed Davey I mean Norman Baker. Oops.

• Ryan M 15th May '10 - 11:33am

  Jeremy Browne has an important job. Hague as Foreign sectary makes me feel somewhat nauseous, hopefully Browne can have some kind of influence and moderate the worst excesses of europhobia that we know Hague has.

• Mack 15th May '10 - 11:36am

  Labour’s betrayals of principle are well documented but I would have retained my regard for the Lib Dems if they had agreed to support the Tories on a supply and confidence basis and not have entered into a coaltion with a party that so wholeheartedly supported the invasion of Iraq. Another example of betrayal of principle. The negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems were cosmetic because the Lib Dems were cynically trying to get the Tories to make an improved offer which included AV. Thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of illegal asylum seekers were briefly given some hope by Nick Clegg that they might at last achieve British citizenship and become legitimate human beings again. So many human stories of exploitation, and the Liberal Democrats have cynically abandoned them for a place below the salt.

• rantersparadise 15th May '10 - 11:37am

  Hmm, going to keep mum for another 2 months and see how it’s all looking then.

• rantersparadise 15th May '10 - 11:38am

  I will say this though,

  EVIL Labour! EVIL Blair!
  GOOD Tories! GOOD Thatcher!

  Indeed folks, Indeed.

  Sigh.

• blanco 15th May '10 - 11:44am

  “not have entered into a coaltion with a party that so wholeheartedly supported the invasion of Iraq”

  That rules out a coalition with Labour then, whose PM and entire cabinet minus 1 wholeheartedly supported the invasion of Iraq, and who continue to defend their decision! No one has apologised for it yet.

  “The negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems were cosmetic because the Lib Dems were cynically trying to get the Tories to make an improved offer which included AV”

  Did I imagine your idols Diane Abbott, John Reid, David Blunkett, Tom Harris and Andy Burnham all over the TV on Tuesday denouncing the fact that negotiations were even going on, because they’d rather lose power than share it with anyone?

  “so many human stories of exploitation”

  What’s Labour;s policy on immigration again?

  Your hypocrisy makes me want to puke. You really haven’t got a leg to stand on. As soon as Labour are out of power, its little troll cheerleaders come scurrying out of the woodwork, suddenly in opposition to Trident or nuclear power or draconian rules on immigration.

  Tell me this, Mack: why is it that Labour’s negotiating team refused to budge on scrapping ID cards and ending child immigrant detention? That is what your party has sunk to. They didn’t want to stop locking immigrant kids up. That is your legacy, along with half a million votes for the BNP.

• Paul 15th May '10 - 12:43pm

  Mack

  I can only assume that you think the Lib Dems shouldn’t do politics. I mean what is the point in a political party that isn’t trying to get its programme implemented. There are many things that I would dearly love to see added to the agenda. That could still happen in coming years but many cherished ideas wouyld not happen at all if we had sat out the next 2 or 3 years. You couldn’t rely on Labour opposing some of the more unacceptable parts of the Tory programme – what does Labour actually stand for?

  Of course the Jury’s out on what happens – we’ve got to make this work and deal with the worst economic crisis the country’s faced since the war. I’d far rather we at least tried to make things better for this country.

  AV isn’t the best answer – it is at least progress. I like the Lords reform (again where is Labour on this?).

  I’m pleased to see some of our hard working MPs get the chance to implement policy and that their work over many years is now of value.