I think people need to look a little more objectively and put an end to the partisan “we hate the Tories” or “we hate Labour” that I am hearing all the time. It makes us look ridiculous and is the main reason that the average person has come to distrust and ultimately hate the political system we currently have. What we have seen over the last few days is actually a huge leap forwards, when two parties which are so fundamentally opposed can come together and find common ground to try to do the best for the country in what is, at least economically, turning out to be a very difficult period.
In the end we had three decisions we could make. To get together in the Rainbow Coalition, to go it alone and give the Tories a minority government or to do as we have done. Take each of those three options alone, a Rainbow Coalition would not last more than a few months, it would not be able to make any decisions, and we have already been told that Labour were not willing to give us any concessions to move a little closer to our manifesto. If we went with this option we would have been betraying every person who voted for us, every person who believed in our manifesto would have been betrayed as they would have seen none of it come to fruition. The only common ground was for a more proportional voting system (not getting into AV/AV+/PR argument) Labour offered us AV as per their manifesto. There are too many Labour back benchers who disagree with changing the voting system that if you do the electoral math this would have failed. The only option we have is to put this to a referendum.
To give the Tories a minority government would have resulted in very little being passed and we would have gone to the country again within a year. Both Labour and Lib Dems lack the funds to run a full election campaign, unlike the Tories (and they know this), plus the country would have been less likely to return a balanced government a second time. We would have been destroyed in a second election. And more than likely would have ended up with an unbridled Tory majority.
As it is, we five Lib Dems in senior positions in the Cabinet, we have a large proportion of our manifesto being put through, we have restricted some of the Tories more outlandish policies, and are in a position to do this further in a coalition. People voted for Lib Dems and have them in government, and have their policies being enacted. I have heard people say we will be screwed as a result of this decision, how does that make us screwed? The only way we will be screwed is if we do not stick to what we said we would, or if what we said we would do turns out to be the wrong decision. I have faith in our party, and the leadership. I believe they will stick to their principals and I believe we have the intelligence and foresight to have come up with a manifesto that will ultimately be good and right.
I understand the fear, this comes from none of us knowing what it is to be in power and we are much more comfortable being in opposition. But this is ultimately (at least in part) what we have campaigned for. We have Lib Dems in power, with Lib Dem policies. In my opinion this is a time to relish everything we have done, and get behind the party to show them they have our support in what will be a difficult time to navigate a coalition.
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66 Comments
What you seem to have forgotten is that politics is about more than just policies, it is also about principles and where are yours now? The real problem many people have with this unnatural coupling is the way in which both sides of the coalition said one thing and then did something else completely. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that politicians can be duplicitous, but if a party no longer stands for anything and you can’t trust what anybody says because they will take it back in order to gain power then we are completely lost. The fact that liberals can not just climb into bed with the likes of Osborne and Ducan Smith but consumate such a relationship undermines any future trust. Integrity as is important as policy in my world and you have none left. I dislike the tories because history tells me what they have always done and because the likes of Tebbitt and Cash and all the Europhobe, homophobe, little England fanatics feel at ease in that party. No wonder so many lib-dems now feel distinctly queesy in such company. They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps and you will be judges.
“They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps and you will be judges.”
Some mistake surely?
You’re right it should have read you will be judged and no doubt you will.
I’ve voted for Lib Dems in every general election, not as a protest vote but because I agree with their policies and their way of doing politics. The lib dems have always understood that compromise is the main tool of politics. No one person has all the answers and no party has all the ideas. OF course I am very happy to see at least some/i> of the policies I voted for implemented.
Although I am obviously nervous of a coalition with a right wing party this is WHAT the country has voted for. Many peoples views are being expressed around the cabinet table as we speak via our elected proxies and as long those proxies compromise and work together for the electorate I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The proof will of course be in the pudding.
Far as I can tell, we’ve managed to keep more of our principles intact than Labour did while it was in power, and this is despite being in coalition with the tories. The fact you don’t realise that modern government should be about compromise says a lot. Perhaps if more labour people did, we’d have been able to go in with them.
I hate to break it to you – many people, completely uninvolved normally in the political process, ARE motivated by partisan hatred. Lots of Labour voters choose (chose?) us in places where we were the only people who could possibly beat the Tories. There’s a lot of them on Merseyside, for example – just anti-Tory voters. The opposite is also true, although I suspect not to the same extent.
Principles still definitely there: I am still a Liberal, I am still a Democrat, and even quite a little bit Social Democrat. And working on the basis of those principles, my party has made great, progressive strides.
Why did Labour refuse to even countenance freeing children from detention for the purposes of immigration control? Where are those principles.
I would probably have preferred a coalition with Labour, but if there principles mean ‘I must be right and I will not negotiate’ then it became, sadly, impossible.
‘their’ not ‘there’ – terrible error.
“I dislike the tories because history tells me what they have always done and because the likes of Tebbitt and Cash and all the Europhobe, homophobe, little England fanatics feel at ease in that party.”
FWIW, Tebbitt seems to hate Cameron and he all but recommended that europhiles vote UKIP at the last European election.
The death of partisan politics is the death of commitment politics to be replaced by people who will do or say anything to exercise power. A sad time indeed.
As one who has been head to head with the Tories for close on 3 decades. I’m hanging up
my claymore and retiring to the country. It’s now a game for committee people, administrators
and sofa pollticians debating obscure points of process. There’s always an element in our party that has deplored
any hint of competition between ourselves and other parties and now they can have their day.
Yes we can make a virtue from the results of an election everybody lost and in fairness we have to wait an see what the Dave and Nick show actually achieves and to what extent the Tories fit us up. Labour will take a year to re-group and then come back ready with every sort of divisive ploy. How we retain a distinctive edge after a year of cohabitation is going to be challenging
I think we have to be careful here.
Barack Obama tried to end partisan politics in the US. it worked in terms of getting elected, but it has failed in terms of getting through worthwhile policies on health for example.
I know it is hard to believe, but political parties still disagree with each other. When Vince Cable argued in favour of nationalising Northern Rock, the Tories strongly disagreed. Such a scenario may well crop up again.
It was only a week ago when Vince Cable argued that it would be ridiculous to cut public spending immediately as that would lead to a double dip recession. Better to let the economic stimulus bring about the growth we need in order to make these cuts more palatable.
Now mysteriously in a space of a few days he has changed his mind. However I am not aware of any sign that the economists who agreed with him then have also changed their minds. Surely one of the prices we pay for going along with the Tories is to risk just that; a double dip recession?
I suspect this time next year the current arrangement will look nothing like so cosy as it does today.
I thought the outcome was quite disappointing myself. But then Labour isn’t the most flexible party in the Commons, so it was hardly surprising. I’m confused as to how the Lib Dems managed to get the Tories to bend so far backwards though.
Still, will be interesting to see what happens.
Whether you support the coalition depends on why you voted Lib Dem. If your prime motivation was to keep the tories out then of course you’re gonna be upset – but that’s the problem with tactical/negative voting, it’ll never make you happy.
Me, I voted for their policies; and now, for the first time in my life, i’m actually gonna see some of what i voted for come into law. Sure, I have to stomach some unpalatable tory policies, but if we’d stayed out of a coalition that would happen anyway with an inevitable 2nd election majority for the tories. Compromise and concession is what balanced governments are all about – something which, if you support PR, you’re gonna have to get used to.
Vince Cable and others have not changed their minds or sold out their principles, they’re just pragmatic and grown up enough to realise that they aren’t gonna get it all their own way and are arguably in a better position to infulence change from within rather than from the outside.
All over the world, political parties make compromise and work together – just because we’ve been so entrenched in tribal politics doesn’t mean we can’t do it here as well.
One need only look at the comments on this website to tell you that political partisanship is not dead. Hell, it survived 13 years of New Labour, one of the most radical policy turn around’s I can think of.
As a founder member of the SDP I have always felt proud to vote for your party. I use the term ‘your party’ as the Liberal Democrat party clearly no longer has the integrity nor does it hold the values of anything I could term ‘my party’. Throughout the south west Lib Dem candidates held onto their seats by offering voters a stark choice – the only opposition to the Conservatives was the Lib Dem candidate. Many of us in the south west have clearly been disenfranchised by Nick Clegg and his party when we chose ‘the only alternative.’
The scramble for the middle ground has been what’s wrong with politics of late, and whether you like it or not, partisan politics is what gets people out there to vote.
‘People voted for Lib Dems and have them in government, and have their policies being enacted’ – Quite right, but that’s not the entire story is it? The statement should read; ‘People voted for Lib Dems to have them as a junior partner in government, and have some of their policies being enacted, whilst having Lib Dem MP’s abstaining or voting for lots of other policies that the party membership is vehemently opposed to’. Now, if you think the latter statement is as true as the first then there won’t be a problem. I have my doubts however.
You are spot on Alan, there was no chance of the Lib/Dems winning power, and none of the policies would have seen the light of day.
Cameron is no Tebbitt, and when you get the Tory press attacking him, including the Daily Mail, you can see that the man is left of his party, and close to the right wing of the Lib/Dems.
Politics from this week have changed, and come the next election I can see this repeating its self, and if PR or a new system is in-place, the Tories and Lib/Dems would join up once more, and keep Labour out of power for years to come.
The thing to do is for the Lib/Dems is to think what policies that they want to go with in 2015.
You might persuade me to ameliorate my hatred for Tories….until I next go to a count where they are winning (like last week). On the other hand I really don’t think that we had much alternative but to do what we have done. It is essential that the country has a period of political stability while the economic problems we face are being tackled, and staying out of a coalition would not have given us that. Additionally, there can be no return of neo-Thatcherism while we are involved in government: sure, we knew who the enemy was then, and the sense of being on the side of good against evil gives one a comfortable feeling of self-worth, but in truth the eighties were a terrible time for a large proportion of the country and we should now be able to avoid a re-run of that period. However, I do fear for our future as a party. How are we going to fight the next election? In Tory seats people might as well vote Tory because (thanks to us) the Tories will be perceived to be nice people: we will have completed the brand de-toxification for them. In Labour seats people aren’t going to vote for us because we’ve just proved the truth of the old northern adage that “Liberals are Tories without their kicking boots on”. Sure, we will be able to point to all our successes in government, and what a wonderful job Chris Huhne has done at Environment, but that isn’t what motivates most people to choose a party – “Well, I really like how Ed Milliband ran the Department of the Environment so i think I’ll vote Labour!” Maybe it will just come down to the fact that Nick is better looking than Cameron or the other Milliband. I don’t know, but I suppose a week is a long time in politics.
You’re saying that you would prefer the Tories had won outright, and none of the Lib Dem policies had been implemented?
Otherwise, looks to me like you got what you voted for – a viable alternative. That’s a lot more than the people who voted Labour can say.
So Linda, what should Nick Clegg have done, stay out and let the public re-elect a majority tory government? How exactly would that make things better for voters in the south west? Isn’t it better to curb back some of the tory polcies like inheritance tax and get in some of your own policies, rather than let them have a free reign to do whatever they want?
Realistically, Lib Dems are never gonna be more than a ‘junior’ partner in government – so voters should expect that they’re gonna drop some of their policies and agree to policies of the main partner. If people are so rigid and inflexible, then go vote for a party that never has a chance of getting into power.
It’s not the end of partisan politics – but it is the end of three party politics.
I’m dreading Osborne’s budget and the axe that’s going to be wielded.
Looks like the Lib Dems have secured the raising off the tax-free threshold, but not the higher taxes for the rich that make such a measure redistributive to the poor. Horribly regressive.
I hate the Tories because they stole my cattle.
Such as? Genuine question, like.
Erm… don’t you think you should wait a bit? Even William Hague waited at least a week before laying into Tony Blair.
Stop making excuses that even Ronnie Heslop would have blanched at. For good or bad, your Party has become the lesser party in a Coalition with the Tories.
Just admit it!
I’ve just heard your beloved Vince Cable describe what the lib-dems are doing as “collaboration.” Chillingly accurate word Vince. Collaborators indeed.
This is Zwartboek, Makhno! A dark Calvinist morality tale where all are goats, except for the ones who’re sheep; and no-one knows who is which.
Questions – when does Paul Verhoeven level of violence commence, and who is the poor sod whose farmhouse gets destroyed by a RAF bomb at the beginning?
And funnily, those snarling attacks on any dissenter are left up whilst my parodies of them are removed.
~alec
An open Tory visitor says.
I am genuinely puzzled as I read many posts expressing a degree of despondency.
Lib Dems have been in the first rank of wanting “New Politics” – which always, in their preferred PR
voting system implied exactly the kind of politics that you are seeing now. One is tempted to say “Be careful what you wish for!”
More seriously the public were often saying ” lay the politics aside and work for the good of the country. Well that is what your leader and mine are trying to do. So why the long faces?
I said yesterday that MaNdela was a hero of yours for working with FW De Klerk. You liked Paisley and McGuiness working together, so why are some of you taking your bat home just because you are working with teh new Cameron Conservatives. I can assure you that over onConservative home there are also unhappy folk ( who I regard as equally short sighted).
We are where we are – which is to say in a fearful economic mess bequeathed by Brown.
Your guys are fighting their corner and getting some results in an environment where they can persuade but not insist, and our guys are similarly constrained.
This IS the new politics which you hare struggled for ( to your credit – against adversity) so as they say in the States ” Put on your big girl’s pants and deal with it!’
I love it when these passing Trots stop by – they are clearly rattled. If you think the Lib Dems should have gone in with a defeated govt – u should have had a few words with fat 2 jags prescott and friends.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… ~*bonk*~
Trots, David? I need a lie down after that.
“For good or bad, your Party has become the lesser party in a Coalition with the Torie”
Of course it has. The party always stood for plural politics and governments that were made up of a democratic representation of the voters wishes, most likely through coalition.
We have a government which is a coalition of two of the three major parties people voted for, and the Lib Dems got the lesser proportion of the votes… guess which side gets to be the bigger player… if you apply a little bit of democratic thought to the process, the answer is so simple even a child having had to go through a tory education system could work it out.
The fact that Lib Dems are happy to mop up so many ministerial posts, whilst clearly being the minor partner, whilst getting few policy concessions, whilst showing absolutely no seperate party identity to the Tories in the post-coalition presentation,
It all shows that the promise of a ministerial limo beats principle as far as the Lib Dem Party top brass is concerned. Shabby.
I have no problem with that, Alex. But, that I was responding to an attempt to deflect attention suggests there is a sense of shame.
I would have preferred a Labour Government. It didn’t happen. Boo to me.
Yet, Clegg gave the public impression of trying to deal with Labour. If this were accurate, your criticism comes back at him (and double to Ashdown who accused Labour of not loving the LibDems enough). If his shenanigans were an attempt to wrangle more concessions out of Cameron, his position looks less noble.
@Alec: Uh, I’m not sure I follow you? There seems to be a remarkable amount of dissent around here, of all descriptions. And in a Liberal society, that is absolutely as it should be.
Spot on Alan, your far more likely to affect policy when your round the table. If PR becomes the norm, which I appreciate is along way off, then a coalition government is the usual outcome. What’s the problem?, Lib Dems want PR, are we only saying we would do deals with labour in the future if we get PR.
Everyone has already answered.
I am centre left and feel more empathy for socialists who care then right wingers who only care about me.
I don’t have an issue with a Tory coalition but I have an issue with transparency and dialogue.
Furthermore, we were thought of as a weak Tory party or weak Labour and now what will they really think of us? (I’ve already heard it!
All I can say that if we went with Labour even as a minority, we would’ve had the lead and truly be progressive.
Yes you all say that Labour did this and that and I still say FAIL.
Clegg made it very obvious that he didn’t want anything to do with Labour or Brown, come on.
Let us not be sheep. We are L I B E R A L and D E M O C R A T S. So yes lets go in a coalition with the Tories but please have some transparency.
What we’ve had? Clegg sucking Cameron’s d*ck.
I’ve never liked it when the LibDems run “keep the Tories out” campaigns at election time, but really, all these righteous “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” types who’ll never vote LD again: why did you do so in the first place?
Never mind the party’s “loss of principles”- where were yours in the polling booth? Why didn’t you vote for what you believed in instead of voting against the Nasty Pasty? Always, always vote with your heart, vote for what you want. If you didn’t, you sold out waaaay before the LibDems even started talks with the Tories.
If you’re a Labour voter complaining about a LibDem “sell out”, just go away. What’s it to do with you? We’ve not betrayed you- you never voted LibDem. You wouldn’t have before this coalition, you won’t now. 10 million people voted Conservative. Go bother them.
Other than that, what alan said. Read alan’s post. I complee agreetly.
Non partisan politics? Surely politics is by its very nature partisan? I’m afraid a lot of Lib Dems are going to be left with egg on their faces when this goes wrong.At heart the Tories are a xenophobic, homophobic party of the elite.In the warm glow of getting your hands on a sliver of power you seemed to have forgotten exactly who you are hitched to. It will all end in tears and Lib Dems seen as the suckers.
@ Rachel
I’m from Tunbridge Wells AND I was helping out with our local Lib Dem party.
Lol, these guys have NOTHING on the ‘disgusted on TWells type’…trust. 🙂
They care and have passion but don’t agree with you about this coalition. No one is being TWells and saying ‘go back to your own country, bring back hunting or all we need is the private sector’…
Be fair. Like Nick Clegg kept on saying.
Fair. Open. Democratic. Liberal.
This means being able to say what you think and not feeling like you live in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.
So get a grip.
We’re allowed our own opinions, which is why we joined this party.
Thomas, that wasn’t directed at you. I agree that dissent has been expressed (although I disagree that upper-case Liberalism requires its accommodation: it just ain’t relevant) on LDV. I am referring to responses from the followers-not-thinkers/leaders which consider such dissent not only to be wrong but malicious.
When I started commenting here in earnest in early March, I was often called a Tory troll. Now I’m being called a Labour troll: often by the same commenters.
I voted Lib Dem because
1) I despise the Tory policy agenda
2) I quite liked the Lib Dem policy agenda.
In voting Lib Dem, I’ve got the Tory agenda and, errr, a load of Lib Dems with ministerial limos.
Never again.
Richard…
Give it a little time to settle down and most of the Lib Dem’s who “hate the Tory” will not be here…
When you go into an election as a party declaring “vote for us to keep the Tory party out” was not only deceitful but also a fine example to set.
Then to cap it all to start saying it is making you look ridiculous, when members/voters of the Lib Dem party start to feel ignored and state why they feel so upset, I actually think you need understand saying one thing and then doing another like “vote for us to keep the Tory party out” and then oh don’t worry it is in our best interest to sleep with the enemy, and put the Tory party into government is RIDICULOUS…
Your party lied, you knocked on doors and lied, and you pushed leaflets through letter boxes enticing voters to vote to keep a party out of power and that was all lies… so please explain to me what is more ridiculous, being deceitful and lying to voters or saying truthfully “I hate the Tory party”
It is about time Politicians started telling the truth, as I believe we were promised by Nick sadly he is no different is he?
I am sure the liberal Democrat party will reap all they deserve from the seeds they have sown
Les, your right, if we sent leaflets out saying “vote for us to keep tories out”, then it is deceitful if we then jump into bed with them; however, I’ve never been happy with this negative scaremongering form of canvassing; it’s not the best way to sell yourself, surely you do that by informing the public about what you stand for and believe in, how can you make peoples lives better. It’s the people who decided on this line of stratergy that are shortsighted and uninspiring, esp. with all polls indicating way back of the possibilty of a hung parliament.
Just finished a Church Housegroup meeting. OK maybe not a representative focus group but before we started the Churchey bit of our meeting we talked about the outcome of the election. I’m fairly sure that of the 9 of us there, 8 voted Lib Dem. All of them were fairly upbeat about the outcome of the election and the fact that the Lib Dems were in coalition. None of them are particularly pro Tory or particularly political. But they were all happy to give this coalition a go (and hopefully pray that it works). What is frustrating is the short termism seen on this site and others. It strikes me that too many of us want to rush to judgement. Of course the coalition could end disasterously, and of course the Lib Dems could get screwed and then destroyed at the next election. But equally if we all give the thing a chance, try to be constructive, have some belief and faith that, maybe for once, people can put aside self interest then maybe it will work. Hope is wonderful thing and surely we all owe it to this nation of ours to have hope, hope that maybe Liberals can influence a Tory administration, blunt some of its harsher edges, get some Liberal policies enacted and create a nation where we are just that bit freer.
Interestingly, I’ve been over to some sites with Tory commenter’s and found that quite a number of people are upset with Cameron’s softness! Seems he’s might lose just as many votes to UKIP as the LDs to Labour.
It seems the first achievement of this coalition is to get Lib Dems hurling more invective at each other than they ever hurled at the opposition.
No-one who supported Cheney’s illegal war for oil in Iraq is in any kind of position to lecture Liberal Democrats on issues of morality and high political principle. The Labour Party is led by a bunch of greedy, squabbling, lying scoundrels, and the sooner Labour members and supporters wake up to that fact the better. Those Liberal Democrats who actually want to subject themselves to the poisonous atmosphere of Labour Party meetings (all the intrigue, stale fag smoke, lies and bullying), you are in for one almighty shock.
Les Moss wrote:
“It is about time Politicians started telling the truth,”
You should have told that to Tony Blair before he stood up and lied to Parliament about Iraq’s non-existent WMD.
Craig – I do very much hope that now that we are in a position to demonstrate the success (one hopes) of our policies, we won’t need to resort to the somewhat disappointing “bar chart” “keep X out” tactics at the next elections, both local and Parliamentary.
@ N Makhno
You are my hero.
“I’ve just heard your beloved Vince Cable describe what the lib-dems are doing as “collaboration.” Chillingly accurate word Vince. Collaborators indeed.”
Sacrificing their main policy of pursuing their main policy of PR, without obtaining even the slightest concession for a proportional system sees the party as ideologically barren in my eyes.
Nick Clegg is a dead man walking and I doubt the electorate will forgive his deceit come the next election. That is of course if him and the so called ‘orange bookers’ don’t finally resolve their crisis of identity and defect to the Tory party before.
“Sacrificing their main policy of pursuing their main policy of PR, without obtaining even the slightest concession for a proportional system sees the party as ideologically barren in my eyes.”
Even if the promised referendum on AV comes to nothing, I don’t think you should underestimate the importance of the commitment to a House of Lords elected on a proportional basis – that is, a House of Lords elected on a fairer basis than the House of Commons.
Up-Front I will state I would not have entered into a ‘Rainbow’ coalition purely due to the fact the numbers were too tight and the stability was tending towards zero.
Yet I do feel that the party line of ‘The Labour Party did not want it …..’ is a little disingenuous.
Read the following article on ‘A Delicate Balance: the history of Liberals and hung Parliaments’:
http://www.markpack.org.uk/hung-parliaments/
This dates back to September 2009 and the closing paragraph makes it quite clear the view had already been reached that Labour(Gordon Brown) could not be worked with.
” … suggested Gordon Brown would similarly be impossible to deal with. Laws echoed this …”
Considering the role David Laws played during the negotiations I feel any deal was less than likely to happen between the Lib-Dems and Labour.
Additionally, if the likelihood of a deal was not really in either parties minds it would appear to have been a little bit shabby to encourage Gordon Brown to fall on his sword anyway.
This does not make me feel good as he was going anyway as a consequence of the, more and more likely, coalition agreement with the Conservatives.
Some honesty on the matter would be welcomed.
@ Anthony Aloysius St
Yes I concede the point that the political reform, name that of the house of lords and fixed term parliaments are welcome and steps in the right direction.
As it stands in the UK, the House of Lords is merely a supervisory body with only the the power to delay and not prevent legislation being passed. The House of Commons can circumvent the House of Lords by use of the Parliament Act.
The real power is in the House of Commons and thats where the reform is needed most, what the Liberal Democrats have always said and campaigned for. The subsequent eery silence on PR, by the Lib Dems and the media, since the Coalition was signed speaks volumes in my mind.
In short: you blew the biggest chance you had at trully transformative reform and settled for welcome, yet minor tinkering at the edges to try and appease the progressive movement.
It has not worked and I am just waiting for the subsequent campain for the ‘Alternative Vote’ system being labelled the alternative voting system by conservatives aimed to confuse, muddle and obscure the issue in the minds of the electorate with a true proportionate system. Aside from the immediate loss of integrity by signing the coalition, you might have given a potential open goal to those who oppose electoral reform.
@ Anthony Aloysius St
“the commitment to a House of Lords elected on a proportional basis ”
According to the bbc news website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8677088.stm
“Committee to look at fully PR-elected House of Lords”
My understanding is that committees can take forever, giving plenty of time for the issue to be kicked into the long grass and even when it reports its recommendations can by ignored the government.
Its VERY different from a ‘commitment’ to a PR House of Lords
Political difference is an expression of diversity, and as such Liberal Democrats of all people should surely welcome it rather than trumpet its imagined downfall. And in our system political parties remain the best – though clearly imperfect – vehicle for most of us to make our perspective count: that’s why Tuesday’s agreement was concluded by two parties rather than by some grand unification convention of their supporters. And surely justifying the eventual deal partly on the basis of Labour hesitation to embrace LibDem manifesto policies is itself an expression of partisanship.
If Liberal Democrat ministers are genuine about moderating partisanship in political life, their first action should be to discard the proposed 55% requirement for premature general elections, which privileges the governing coalition alone. Though arrived at in good faith as a token of the two parties’ commitment to the deal, the provision sends a horrifically inappropriate message to those it threatens to exclude from going to the country in the event of a fundamental parliamentary realignment. Let the “new politics” start with the abandonment of a measure that can only inflame political passions and could be disastrous in a future legislature.
When faced with the truth it hurts, after the MPs expense scandal, which all parties whatever the colour had problems with…
When then a man, an MP, a Leader of a party, tells us the public that MPs and the political parties need to be honest, open and truthful and says that is what you will get from me and my party…
Well need I say more?
“lecture Liberal Democrats on issues of morality and high political principle” of course I can your party lied to voters… no ifs, no buts, they lied.
The venom by which some are defending the Lib Dem party is above and beyond…
I think when you have to defend against tax rises, unemployment, and unfairness to the poorest and needy, you are going to need more than “I did not support war” or “The Labour Party is led by a bunch of greedy, squabbling, lying scoundrels” that last one actually fits all parties including The Lib Dem…
The truth hurts, but let’s be honest you are going to hear a lot more
Les Moss
I actually think you need understand saying one thing and then doing another like “vote for us to keep the Tory party out” and then oh don’t worry it is in our best interest to sleep with the enemy, and put the Tory party into government is RIDICULOUS…
No, I don’t think anyone in the Liberal Democrats campaigned on the line that under no circumstances would we endorse a government which contains Conservatives. All of us who have thought through multi-party politics, or in many cases been active in it at local government level, have known that the possibility we would have to make some sort of agreement with the Conservatives after the election was strong.
What the current situation has shown is how ridiculous it is to ask before the election “which party would you go into coalition with?”. It really does depend on the arithmetic that results from the election, so it is not possible to say so before. In this case, the arithmetic left us with no choice but to make some sort of arrangements with the Conservatives. Not to have done so would have left us with the accusation, and it would have been correct, that the presence of Liberal Democrat MPs makes stable government impossible, and therefore to another election very shortly in which both the other parties would be saying “The purpose of this election is to enable you to get rid of Liberal Democrat MPs as government in this country cannot function with them around”.
Your party lied, you knocked on doors and lied, and you pushed leaflets through letter boxes enticing voters to vote to keep a party out of power and that was all lies… so please explain to me what is more ridiculous, being deceitful and lying to voters or saying truthfully “I hate the Tory party”
I do not think we would have campaigned on the explicit line that we would keep out from any government involvement either the Conservative or Labour Party. It was instead made clear that in the event of no party gaining a majority, any discussion on coalition or other arrangements to support a minority government would be on the basis of whichever party gained the most votes should have the chance to try and form one first.
It is not us Liberal Democrats who have put the Conservatives in, but the people. They chose to elect more Conservative MPs than Labour MPs. The previous Labour government made no changes to the electoral system and therefore also endorsed what we have – the Conservative Party boosted beyond the votes it obtained and the Liberal Democrats diminished because the system does not proportionally turn votes into MPs. It is defended by both Labour and the Conservatives on the grounds that it distorts in favour of the largest party, which they say is good because it leads to more stable government. This system, as endorsed by the Labour Party every bit as it is by the Conservative Party, left the Liberal Democrats in a relatively weak position when it came to negotiating with the Conservatives.
You say we have “lied”, but then what else should we have done after those election results that would not in your eyes be a lie?
How about we all calm down and try and make this new politics work. All this rage is so old politics. Welcome to the 21st century guys.
Craig.
The reason I am so… not angry… irritated is probably closer, I choose to place my vote with the Lib Dem party this time around, I actually believed what Nick said
In 1979 I believed Mrs T, now that was anger… and I swore never again would I support a Tory government…
To my dismay my vote this time has actually done just that… and that has irritated me immensely…
As you can see I am not a child or even close to, and I do understand politics a little, I could have lived with a Tory minority Government supported from the opposition benches on a vote by vote basis, keep the Tory government well under control, sadly we know that did not happen.
Many swing voters who vote Lib Dem as an alternative to Labour are never going to trust the Lib Dem party again, there is proof in eating the pudding, many, many of us ate the pudding in the 80s and 90s and believe me it was not nice, this time around there is no big sell off to soften the blows.
It does not look good for us at all…
Yes I am one of those, it does not matter who is in government as long as it is not a Tory government!!!
Tory policy, is never favourable to the average Joe, no matter what spin is put on it.
To Matthew Huntbach – do you remember me from the old Brighton Lib days?
Dave
If Liberal Democrat ministers are genuine about moderating partisanship in political life, their first action should be to discard the proposed 55% requirement for premature general elections, which privileges the governing coalition alone.
The 55% requirement is for a dissolution of Parliament and hence another general election, not for the resignation of the government and the formation of another one. A lot of commentators seem to have missed this point.
Without such an agreement two things could very well have happened depending in how things work over the next year. If it was looking good for him, Cameron would have called for a new election within a year, using the line “throw out the LibDems and give us a majority”. This has been a common enough pattern for government with a small or no majority, it was in the LibDem interest to stop it happening and therefore to continue their influence on government. On the other hand, if things got tough, Cameron would be rightly afraid that the Liberal Democrats would find an excuse to pull out, table a motion of no confidence,and get a new election which they would fight in the grounds “We tried, but these nasty Tories are impossible to work with, give us more MPs and we’ll be in a stronger position, and maybe there’ll be enough Labour MPs to go that way next time”.
No new election does not mean ruling out the possibility of the LibDems pulling out and forming a government with Labour still in the present Parliament. One could envisage it happening particularly if Labour had a string of by-election wins so the arithmetic moved in their favour. I don’t think it likely though, because I can imagine what the right-wing press would say about it.
The 55% rule could itself be voted down by Parliament, so it’s a safeguard that would make a premature dissolution harder to obtain but not impossible.
I assume that everybody on this thread who claims that they voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out and now feels betrayed lives in a seat where the fight was between the Lib Dems and the Tories, and the Lib Dem won? Or maybe in a strong Tory seat where they were encouraged to vote Lib Dem to unseat the Tory, and nobody managed to? There seems to be a fair bit of confusion about what impact people’s votes will actually have had.
Somebody was quoted in the Guardian yesterday as feeling “betrayed” because they’d voted Lib Dem in Chesterfield to keep the Tories out – well, we lost Chesterfield to Labour, and there was never the slightest chance of a Tory winning there anyway. And even they had a slightly better grip than a girl on Question Time last night who started having a go at Simon Hughes for betraying trust and abandoning the tuition fees promise, and turned out not to even have voted Lib Dem.
How come, in the last few days, I keep on thinking of this famous quote?
” here are my principals, if you don’t like them, I have some others”
I know that compromise is a virtue and some compromise needed at the present time but it IS possible to compromise yourself into extinction, I just hope that it hasn’t happened here
To Robert Eggleston – hi Robert, yes I do remember you from the Brighton days.
Les Moss
As you can see I am not a child or even close to, and I do understand politics a little, I could have lived with a Tory minority Government supported from the opposition benches on a vote by vote basis, keep the Tory government well under control, sadly we know that did not happen.
If that is your answer to what else could we have done, I too would have preferred supply and confidence to a Tory minority government rather than a coalition. However, we should be aware that had there been no agreement with the Tories, we just said we would do this, they almost certainly would have called another general election within a year on the lines “give us a majority to govern”, and held off the big cuts until they’d got that majority then.
An agreement was needed on both sides to prevent either calling an early general election – the Tories by asking for one, the LibDems by tabling a vote of no confidence on a pretext when it suited them.
An arms-length agreement of the sort I would have preferred would have given us more independence to criticise at the cost of being forced to sit on our hands when the nastier Tory stuff went through Parliament.
Nevertheless, I’m coming to feel that the logic of the current electoral system should have led to that. The line should very strongly have been “there was a majority vote for the two party system, and under the two-party system the Tories won, so we’re going to sit on our hands and let the country see what the two-party system gives it”. Every time a bone-headed Labour lefty moaned at us for letting Tory nastiness get by, we’d say “you oppose PR, you want it to be just you v. them, now you’re getting your wish”.
But of course, what I’m saying is what the Tory right wanted and said so vocally. In order to stop the quick new election tactic we’d actually have to cosy up to the Tory right and sell it to them like that.
Nevertheless, I think going into coalition when our weight in the coalition is much less than our weight in popular votes due to the distortional representation was not good.
@rantersparadise
If you re-read my post, it was not aimed at LibDem members at all. I directed it at people tactically voting LibDem, or Labour voters with an axe to grind. Your reply seems to suggest I was trying to gag LibDem party members…I wasn’t.
@ Matthew Huntbach
“An arms-length agreement of the sort I would have preferred would have given us more independence to criticise at the cost of being forced to sit on our hands when the nastier Tory stuff went through Parliament.
Nevertheless, I’m coming to feel that the logic of the current electoral system should have led to that. The line should very strongly have been “there was a majority vote for the two party system, and under the two-party system the Tories won, so we’re going to sit on our hands and let the country see what the two-party system gives it”. Every time a bone-headed Labour lefty moaned at us for letting Tory nastiness get by, we’d say “you oppose PR, you want it to be just you v. them, now you’re getting your wish”.”
What you are saying certainly would have been better for the Liberal Democrats, and allow them the best opportunity to retain their principles intact.
But, the people who would have suffered the most would be the general public. The Lib Dems have always said that party’s and politicians should put the interests of the general public first.
I personally think they proved that with this unpopular and potentially damaging alliance. They stand a real risk of losing a lot, but for the next 5 years I think we will get a slightly better and fairer government than we would have done with an agreement to hold up a tory minority.
Not to mention that the Lib Dems, believing in coalitions and PR have proved inconclusively, that what they are prepared to stand by this however the public vote. It’s no good supporting plural politics and balance if you then say “but only when you vote the way we’d like you to.” or “but we’ll only work with people we agree with”
Ironically, the people you disagree with the most, are the ones you most need to work with to bring a better balance when they are in power.