It’s a good job I’m not a betting man, having said here in July “my bets are strongly against the Government giving up [on Lords Reform] at this point”. But now we know: David Cameron’s authority within the Conservative Party is so weak that he cannot even persuade his MPs to support an agreed manifesto commitment, and a Bill unanimously supported by his Cabinet. Cameron and Osborne voted for the 80% elected component as long ago as 2003, yet this summer their right-wing backbenchers simply would not accept elections at all.
Unsurprisingly, concern for future of their own constituencies – as boundary changes loomed – has trumped loyalty to Number 10. The armchair members, who decide whether Tory MPs have any political future, are much more right-wing than the country as a whole, and reward signs of “independence”, especially if it seems to be at Liberal Democrat expense. These are the same people who maintain the illusion that the Conservatives could and should have formed a minority government. Tory MPs are spending most of the Recess with them.
This is, of course, the traditional “Silly Season”. Backbench treason to the Prime Minister coincides with Tory grassroot muttering about “Boris for Leader” or “Let’s do a deal with UKIP”. Cameron’s weakness in the face of such rumblings is not lost on Conservative strategists, especially now revised parliamentary boundaries are effectively dead. Tim Montgomerie, the astute editor of ConservativeHome, put it well last night on BBC radio, saying that there had been “no bigger reverse for the Conservative Party since Black Wednesday in 1992 in terms of our electoral prospects”. This was a “big problem for David Cameron in his relationship with the Conservative Party…David Cameron doesn’t look like a winner any more…David Cameron doesn’t have a plan to win the next General Election, and that’s why today is another big blow to his leadership..”
By contrast, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have shown themselves respectively to be strong and united. With the support of Liberal Democrat activists at our conferences, Nick has rebuffed Conservative excesses time and again. What we have found difficult to accept and anticipate was that Lords Reform – a promise of all parties to the electorate for more than a decade – could turn out to be seen by some Conservatives as a Liberal Democrat excess.
Since Conservatives are determined not to strengthen Parliament by reforming the Lords, Nick is right to end the uncertainty around boundary reviews, and call for an end to the process. If the Lords cannot be more legitimate and more assertive, then the Commons cannot yet be shrunk in size. Without Lords reform, the net effect would be a weaker Parliament and a stronger executive.
If David Cameron has lacked authority these last few months, Ed Miliband has been simply hopeless. He has permitted his Party to be craven and shameless against its own long-term interest. Charlie Falconer’s protestations that the proposals were “flawed” are absurd since the Bill stood fair and square on foundations laid by his own government four years ago, in Jack Straw’s White Paper. For these reasons, only 26 reactionary Labour MPs rebelled against Miliband’s instructions to vote with the second reading of the Bill. Yet he has been in hock to them.
If Miliband in Opposition cannot even face down a conservative minority in his ranks to bring about a long-held Labour ambition, what hope has he of making difficult decisions in Government? The Bill’s ideals were ignited by Keir Hardie, and its ideas were given new life in this century by Robin Cook. Ed Miliband must know that both would turn in their graves to see these proposals falter for short-term political advantage.
This has been a shabby episode in British politics. But I feel sure that with the appointment of yet more peers in the coming months, this will not be the last episode in the reform story. The Lords will continue to be self-important, self-congratulatory and self-centred. It will get even more ludicrous. And Labour – after this week’s Pyrrhic victory – will face a hostile House of Lords if they ever return to government, along with an indefensible system of appointment which they will wish had been sorted out when there was such a good chance. They will deserve all the major headaches it creates for them.
* Lord Tyler is the Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Political and Constitutional Reform.
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42 Comments
As far as I can see the Lib Dems in Parliament have done themselves no favours with this move looking petulent and without principle.
Yes there is the possibility that the Party wont now be wiped out if we retain the existing boundaries but the number of MPs is surely going to be reduced from our current 56 (assuming the loss of Huhne’s seat sometime in the autumn) when the next election take splace in 2015 or earlier.
And what have we as Lib Dems gained from this parliament and involvement in the coalition? Student tuition fees? electoral reform? House of Lords reform? Advancement of the party? A solid base to build towards years in Government? A strong presence in local Government? All the gains seem to have been personal – increases in the incomes of Clegg, Alexander, Teather etc, Nothing has been gained by the Lib Dems
@Lucy
Kill the boundary changes, you call us petulant. Don’t kill the boundary changes, half the rest of the population calls us spineless.
Pardon my cavalier attitude here, but frankly when we stand to lose in someones’ eyes either way, we might just as well go for the option that doesn’t wreck up our constituency strongholds come 2015. Of course you do raise a valid point about what we have actually won from this coalition. I could list a lot of small things that we’ve got ,but they’re all policy twiddling and what we need in order to confidently rebut such a question is something big.
It does concern me that when it comes down to it “we might just as well go for the option that doesn’t wreck up our constituency strongholds come 2015” trumps a more equal spread of the electorate. I thought the Lib Dems didn’t think solely about elections over principle?
Lucy, are you related to Polly Toynbee by any chance? Your views seem very similar!
Paul Tyler’s article is excellent, and captures well all the nuances of a complicated situation for all parties. This was the right decision, given the weakness of Cameron and the short-termism of Milliband.
@Mr0a
Lib Dems also believe that power should be decentralised as much as possible – reducing the number of MPs (remember, it’s not just about equal-sized constituencies) without reducing the number of Government posts and/or reforming the Lords goes against that ideal because it strengthens the Executive and weakens Parliament. So it’s a choice between making changes to boundaries, reducing the number of MPs and weakening Parliament vs the Govt., or maintaining the current boundaries and Parliament/Exec. balance until there is the will to enact reform which will deliver both fair votes and a strong Parliament. I think the latter was the better choice.
As was said by the ERS in the wake of the AV referendum, the system (be it FPTP, the House of Lords, etc.) is still as broken as before and will continue to become more so as time passes. At it’s current rate of expansion the Lords will soon pass 1000 members and will become ever more unmanageable. Voters will continue to desert the three main parties in favour of the more minor ones, making hung parliaments and/or hugely disproportional results more likely, and so on and so forth. Parliamentarians have only delayed (and potentially made worse) the inevitable crisis, rather than averting it.
@Richard Shaw
“Lib Dems also believe that power should be decentralised as much as possible – reducing the number of MPs (remember, it’s not just about equal-sized constituencies) without reducing the number of Government posts and/or reforming the Lords goes against that ideal because it strengthens the Executive and weakens Parliament.”
Didn’t Lib Dems oppose and vote down a labour amendment to reduce the number of government posts in proportion to the reduced number of seats?
Well that was a good fun read! Certainly there are other sides to this, but all that Paul Tyler writes is true.
It is difficult to understand what Lucy’s attitude is (other than disingenuous). The bottom line as far as the Parliamentary system is concerned must be that the Liberal Democrats do not leave the Parliament less democratically representative than it was before (which is what many Labour and Conservatives yearn for).
@T-J
“Kill the boundary changes, you call us petulant. Don’t kill the boundary changes, half the rest of the population calls us spineless.”
Precisely what the party should expect when it reverses its position. All of those who agreed with the previous party view will feel betrayed, all of those who disagreed will feel vindicated. Both sides will be p*ssed off by the inconsistent and unreliable behaviour.
To be honest, I don’t actually know what the official Lib Dem policy is over the boundary changes. Do we still think they’re a good idea but will vote against the details to be awkward? Or are they a bad idea that we forced through parliament anyway but won’t now? Or was it always a bad idea but we’ve only now thought about the arguments made against it and have belatedly changed our minds? Or is 600 MPs and equal constituencies only a good thing in 2015 if by 2025 80% of 300 members of the House of Lords will be elected? Or is 600 MPs and equal constituencies also a good thing if the tories let us increase the personal tax allowance a bit more?
I have to disagree with Paul Tyler’s assertion that “Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have shown themselves respectively to be strong and united”, and in his final paragraph he implies that Lib Dem peers will exploit the system they oppose in order maliciously to make life difficult for a democratically elected incoming government. The dream of a new kind of politics and an era of electoral reform has been well and truly shattered, and Lib Dems have been at the centre of this “shabby episode in British politics”.
Peter Watson
Didn’t Lib Dems oppose and vote down a labour amendment to reduce the number of government posts in proportion to the reduced number of seats?
Did they? Fascinating if true. I don’t have any recollection of that — which is of course a far cry from saying it didn’t happen. Do you have any record or evidence of this amendment having been proposed?
@Malcolm Todd
“Lord Falconer also moved amendment 27F, which sought to decrease the number of government ministers in proportion to the reduction in the size of the House of Commons. The amendment was defeated by 161 votes to 222.”
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/february/av-report-stage/
Peter Watson@Malcom Todd: OUCH!!!
That really was the wrong way to go. Fancy Lord Falconer moving a principled amendment! But then he has a lot of do gooding to do to make up for his own faux pas in government.
Paul Tyler makes a powerful point:
“Without Lords reform, the net effect would be a weaker Parliament and a stronger executive”
Lib Dems should officially own up and admit that they should not have opposed Lord Falconer. However in mitigation Falconer’s point becomes much more important now that democratic improvements to both Commons and Lords have been lost.
The boundary changes are dead, and really that’s a good thing. The “rules” for devising new boundaries were drawn so tightly that the final proposals, however they turn out, will contain lots of seats for which there is little logic in terms of natural boundaries or identifiable communites.
Let’s not forget, however, that the LibDem negotiating team appears to have been blind to three rather obvious realities until worryingly late in the day:
– in negotiations, things you want should always be linked to things the other side wants.. The new boundaries and a new voting system should have been tied together from the outset and the entire proposition – a 600 member house with redrawn boundaries and AV voting – put to referendum as a package, yes or no
– boundary changes with larger redrawn constituencies were always going to be the most disadvantageous to the party that depends most heavily on local campaigning and the incumbency factor. As such conceding this change represented a much bigger “give” than our negotiating team seems to have appreciated at the time
– even attempting to press ahead with Lords reform during an economic crisis and in the face of backbench conservative opposition, the naked unprincipled opportunism we have come to expect from Labour, and all the powers of interia including the bums within our own ranks that rather like their fur-lined red leather seats for life, was always going to be doomed, and we could and should have worked out an endgame at a much earlier stage
@@David Rogers 7th Aug ’12 – 6:13pm
“Paul Tyler’s article is excellent, and captures well all the nuances of a complicated situation for all parties.”
I am sure the Chief Steward on the Titanic arranged deckchairs in an excellent manner which captured well all the nuances of a complicated situation.
Much as I would like to see House of Lords Reform, I thought the proposal ‘on the table’ was absolutely horrible. The in-fighting, backstabbing and licking of nooks and crannies which would go on within each political party to get to the top, or near the top of the HoL lists for the 15 year sinecures would dwarf anything ever seen at Tammany Hall.
“Unsurprisingly, concern for future of their own constituencies – as boundary changes loomed – has trumped loyalty to Number 10”
This is bizarre reasoning. I’ve not seen anyone else suggest that Conservative MPs voted against Lords reform with an ulterior motive to have LibDems scupper the boundary changes so they could keep their seats. If so, surely the LibDems should support the boundary changes. That’d show’em.
Now that Lords reform has been abandoned (at least for the remainder of this parliament), will the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive reverse its recent decision not to hold the elections for the Interim Peers Panel scheduled for this autumn?
@Peter Watson — thanks. And to second Martin — OUCH! I remember people talking about the payroll issue on here at the time, but didn’t realise (or had forgotten) that it was actually put forward in parliament. I notice from that same report that there was also an amendment “30A, moved by Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, [which] proposed that Clause 11 – on the number and distribution of parliamentary seats – should not come into effect until legislation limiting the size of the House of Lords has been introduced. The amendment was defeated by 136 votes to 195.” So there was an opportunity to link the constituency changes to some sort of Lords reform right there, and it was rejected — obviously, given the numbers, with LD support. Ouch again. What a mess.
@Malcolm Todd
Looking back through some of the parliamentary debate is quite interesting. I had no idea there was such a wealth of information.
I started looking at the transcript of the first reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that was introduced by Nick Clegg. I could not find the bit where he or any other Lib Dem MP pointed out that the reforms were dependent upon reform of the upper chamber but here is the link for those who are more persistent:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100906/debtext/100906-0001.htm#1009066000001
Perhaps Nick made that point in a later debate, so here is a link to all of the stages of the bill’s passage through the Commons and the Lords:
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-12/parliamentaryvotingsystemandconstituencies/stages.html
Surely in all that time and discussion, someone on the Lib Dem benches must have pointed out that regardless of its merits that they were extolling, if the legislation was passed half of it would be rejected unless some as yet to be written legislation about Lords reform was also voted through a couple of years later.
Oh, you can find people making some sort of a connection, as it turns out. Col. 37 of the Hansard document you link to:
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): I am sure that it is right that constituencies should be broadly the same size, and it may be right that there are too many MPs, but what is the point of wading through blood to reduce the number of MPs just to create second-rate elected Members of the other place?
The Deputy Prime Minister: I am not sure that I entirely understand the connection, …
(emphasis added)
Oh dear, oh dear.
If Cameron is merely “weak” on this issue, and did not in fact give the go-ahead to the “rebels” to scupper Lords Reform, then why not let the pro-reform Conservatives, Lib Dems, and pro-reform Labour MPs sit down and hammer out a compromise that can get enough support between the three parties to achieve a majority? Why does the majority have to come solely from the government benches? Shouldn’t policy be more important than party politics?
Labour is probably less ahead than the polls suggest, because Ed Miliband is not yet a plausible alternative Prime Minister; the Labour party also is not as plausible as an alternative government as they think. After all, they are very good at wounding the Government, but not so skilled at coming up with credible policy alternatives.
I have sincere doubts that we will be judged on the basis of delivering electoral reform or not. It’s a debate that belongs to a time that has the space to consider such things. At the moment, the Bank of England predicts zero economic growth for this year. Unemployment is stubbornly high, austerity doesn’t appear to be working, the Euro crisis rumbles on. What could damn the Liberal Democrats and indict the entire political system far more than any Lords reform (or not) is if our leaders cannot find a way to navigate to a better destiny. The public may come to the conclusion that politicians are more interested in esoteric debates while they find their prospects and their future diminished; they may damn all the parties. And to an extent, they would be right.
It’s perfectly possible to reduce the impact of the payroll vote without changing the number of MPs. It’s also possible to equalize the size of constituencies without reducing the number of MPs. It’s not like cutting the number of MPs will save that much money. Given how many talent-free MPs are parachuted into safe Tory or Labour seats, I reckon we should have about 800 MPs, then perhaps more able politicians than Hunt and May would be available to populate cabinet positions.
Paul, thanks for your thoughtful piece. Please consider carefully what David wrote above.
The actions of the rebel Tories gave us the opportunity to extend the way coalition works from the rather straightforward, unimaginative format which operates at the moment and which has a built-in advantage for the larger of the coalition parties – an advantage that is not inevitable.
Because the two leaderships (and their apparatus in offices of the PM and DPM) are too closely linked, Cameron knows it is more important for him to pander to his rebels than to his *partners*.
Imposing the ‘penalty’ of removing LD support for a boundary review is not sufficient. We needed to change the nature of the relationship within the mechanics of coalition. That is where it really hurts the Conservative leadership. That is what the rebels actually did on their side and it is what we should do as a response.
Threatening to take this to a referendum in partnership with Labour would have given Cameron more headaches than conveniently bowing to his rebels.
Yet again the strategic acumen of our ‘team at the top’ has been found wanting.
This approach is doubly important for dealing with/changing economic policy, which becomes more important with each passing day.
@Christian De Feo
“I have sincere doubts that we will be judged on the basis of delivering electoral reform or not.”
For most of the electorate this is probably not an important issue per se. But another Clegg u-turn, a lack of clarity about what Lib Dem policy actually is, saying one thing and voting for another, etc., … this all reinforces a view that our party is weak and lacks competence, integrity, leadership, vision and purpose. That will affect the way we are judged on every issue.
Also, for those interested in Lib Dem politics – the members and the activists – they will judge the party on how well it has handled an issue that is important to them.
Julian – you can’t have been keeping an eye on broadsheet political gossip! Many Tory MPs have been very concerned about their own political futures after boundary changes! As for your suggestion that therefore Lib Dems should support the changes…. words fail me. Tory MPs know that Lib Dems will be the worst affected party by the changes (proportionally), and that many LD MPs oppose them on those grounds, apart from any grounds of wider principle, of which there are several. Paul is absolutely right in this contention.
What Paul does not tell us, of course, is that it was because of a failure to calculate the likely effects by our party in the lead up to coalition negotiations that we fell into this particular trap. It links with the economic, social (welfare) , environmental, health, and education areas where negotiations were not hard, or correctly focused enough. It would fairly quickly have been found that there were far too many basic differences between Tory and Lib Dem, and that on the declared “central aim” of economic change, the underlying objectives and policy approaches were too different to make a coherent difference. This last point becomes ever more evident with the position the UK finds itself in. Is it surprising that many accuse the Lib Dems of “selling out” to the Tories?
It would probably be a more useful exercise to bring forward a White Paper outlining ways in which Lords and Ladies can be removed from the Upper House, at least then we wouldn’t need to listen to endless justifications for stuffing it with more of their number to parrot their respective party line.
Frankly speaking I don’t want to line them up against a wall and shoot them, neither do I think the majority of them are ever likely to be in favour of voluntary removal.
Perhaps introducing a term-limit might be a better place to start than elections. ‘Life’ doesn’t mean life in the prison system, why should it in Parliament?
@David :
“……. why not let the pro-reform Conservatives, Lib Dems, and pro-reform Labour MPs sit down and hammer out a compromise that can get enough support between the three parties to achieve a majority? Why does the majority have to come solely from the government benches? ”
The answer is, unfortunately, that the British ‘system’ is based upon the idea that we have to have a ‘government’ which has to have its way on virtually all things, otherwise it falls over in a fit of pique, and also has to be the initiator of all important legislation, otherwise it throws its dummy out of the pram. Once, the dummy-throwing automatically demanded an immediate general election. Now, although recent legislation theoretically changed all that, the prospect of an eventual general election coming out of any major political turmoil, albeit at a slightly slower pace, still remains in the background and the basic mentality of most of the parties concerned remains the same. Consequently, anything not horse-traded in the Coalition Agreement (or subsequently via the ‘quad’) has to be considered alien by the parties to the Coalition, regardless of whether it is basically sensible and might command the support of the House across Party lines. The official Opposition takes a similar approach to anything which they don’t originate or control which their backbenchers might consider flirting with.
“Not Invented Here Syndrome” Rules, KO? 🙁
I wonder if Paul Tyler really means what he is saying here, apparently Ed Milliband is hopeless as he is being opportunistic with House of Lords reform, whereas the Lib Dem leadership in dropping their basic economic policy , increasing tuition fees, withdrawing EMA, supporting the disastrous NHS reforms, supporting the attack on the disabled etc are examples of strong leadership and principled politics!
I think that Lords reform is needed but it is not as important as the damage being doe to the economy by ignoring the lessons of the 1930’s by shrinking a already depressed economy and by implementing an economic strategy that wasn’t supported by the electorate (the combined Labour, Lib Dem, Green and Nationalist vote certainly topped the Tories). That is what proportional representation is meant to be about.
Only a politically blinkered writer will not see the absurdities of this argument. If the only purpose of the LIb Dems was electoral change then Paul Tyler might have a point, but if as I believe electoral change is a part of a much larger political change then this is frankly absurd. I am beginning to believe that the Lib Dems deserve the inevitable electoral disaster awaiting them, which is a shame as until the Coalition agreement I was a member!
Oranjepan: Other initiatives on the Lords have to be set aside at the moment, particularly any that originate from the LIb Dems. It is important that there is nothing introduced by the Lib Dems that Tories can point at to claim that Lib Dems have had some Lords reform, therefore the boundary changes should be implemented.
I really do not know what is up with Lords Steel and Carlisle these days, they give every appearance of being complacent, self serving and an obstacle to democratic reform. In fact they tacitly, but powerfully present the case why the House of Lords should not be where politicians go after the Commons and why the House of Lords should not be treated as some kind of sinecure. In reality Steel’s little ideas amount to no change: it is embarrassing to have rascals in the Lords (but much less embarrassing that they are unelected) but this does not change what it does or how it votes; the fact that some do not turn up does not affect much either, not that the Lords and Ladies get very old – if they want to tell people they will no longer be active in the House they are perfectly free to do so. None of these issues have anything more than the most trivial significance compared to the whole.
I wish people would stop saying what would Labour do and Labour has n o policies or alternatives. This is absolute Hogwash.
In this day and age, everyone know’s or should know how politics works.
Labour are in opposition and it is not their place to offer policy alternatives, it is their job at present to hold government to account.
“When” a election is called, that will be the time for Labour to announce their policies to the electorate.
Given the current climate, it would be ludicrous if ALL parties does not already have a manifesto to campaign on in the event of a snap election.
So stop all this nonsense and passing the buck about what’s Labours alternative is, I am confident that the electorate will soon be enlightened.
The bigger question is what will the Libdems be doing, what policies will they be putting forward and how will they contradict policies they have already voted through whilst in Government
Matt: as I understand it the proposals for Lords reform were very much Labour’s proposals. Nick Clegg clearly was aiming or the lowest common denominator. In fact it would have lead to an upper House that would in many ways resemble what had been there before, hence the opportunity to criticise the reforms as an inadequate hotch-potch, but this was very much consensus politics – hence the irritation.
Come the next election, I think the Lib Dems will need to come up with something more robust and accountable
I also found this quote by Clegg in evidence to the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill in February (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtdraftref/284/284ii48.htm) that seems to entirely contradict his current position:
Q714
Tristram Hunt: Talking of grass roots and parties, in the Guardian today, Lord Rennard, the former chief executive of the Liberal Democrats, explicitly links support for reform of the House of Lords to Liberal Democrat support for the boundary review. Is there any basis to that suggestion?
Mr Clegg: Of course there is no formal link between those different elements of the constitutional and political reform agenda that this Government are pursuing. There are various different facets of it. I recently got the ball rolling on what I hope will be new, fruitful discussions on party funding reform. Mark Harper is piloting legislation through Parliament on individual electoral registration to bear down on electoral fraud. We had a referendum last year. We have legislated for a fixed-term Parliament. There are various bits that make up the mosaic of this Government’s political and constitutional reform agenda. I think they all hang together in a coherent way, but there is not a quid pro quo about one aspect as opposed to another.
Conservative crisis, Labour leaderless, and LibDems …. ???????????
Another interesting quote from the same evidence. I thought it would be too cheeky if I stopped after Clegg’s first answer though:
Q713
Tristram Hunt: Am I right in thinking that the coalition agreement suggested that a draft House of Lords Bill would come forward, so in terms of the coalition agreement just a draft Bill was all that was required?
Mr Clegg: Yes.
Tristram Hunt: So you have fulfilled that. For those critics who fear that this is going further, in terms of the agreement, that has been ticked off.
Mr Clegg: Any Government puts forward a draft Bill for a purpose, not for the sake of it. That draft Bill is there to be examined, revised and finally adopted.
The headline to Paul’s article reminded us of ‘Fog in Channel, Continent isolated’.
Martin,
a term-limit for Lords is included as part of the current proposals, but its’ introduction is tied to elections.
Clegg argued that the ‘lowest common denominator’ approach was designed specifically to bypass the roadblocks and get reform moving, so as the party is now arguing elections to the Lords and the reduction in MPs must be considered in tandem to prevent greater control of Parliament by the government of the day it makes no sense to stop pushing for the adoption those parts of the White Paper which are unaffected by this when the consequence would otherwise be to go against the democratic principle and pack the upper chamber with more appointments.
Term-limits on Lords is the first step to bringing forward elections in the upper house, and we’re desperate to be able to point towards successfully implementing our policies instead of being constantly stymied by the unholy alliance of Labour and Tories. It may be a small step, but it’s something where we can show we forced a compromise from the other sides – for a change.
I found the title of this peice quite funny if that is the attitude and belief of members of the Lib-Dem party.
“By contrast, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have shown themselves respectively to be strong and united”
Its not quite how people view Nick Clegg im afraid to say your living in dreamworld. Most people look at the Lib-Dems in government as a joke at least the people I talk to anyway.
But Richard, pray understand, this is the parallel universe of Lib Dem Voice where every humiliation is a Clegg triumph and no setback matters because “at least we have the pupil premium”.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/adrian-sanders-is-still-right-25243.html
Only saying.
@Adrian Sanders
I love the fact that when I go to that LDV page I see an advert: “Apply to House of Lords – Want to join The Lords? Let us increase your chances of success”. Looks like the Lib Dem climbdown is good news for one British business!!
Howard and Lorraine 8th August – Brilliant! Have a go at the caption competition next time. (But with opinions like yours, I’m afraid you won’t win it.)
Labour isn’t leaderless unlike the Lib Dems who have a leadership which cannot make up their mind. With trust on the economy, Ed Miliband with higher approval ratings, highest poll lead in over 10 years and massive gainst in local elections notwithstanding the fact that the bulk of the Lib Dem vote has autonomatically gone to Labour, it is very hard to see a Tory government.
The public want a focus on jobs, returning growth to the economy and social justice rather than constitutional games over Lords reform and electoral reform. They really don’t care about the latter, and “standing up” to kill off a thing they don’t really care about unlike say the franchising off of the English NHS or tuition fees will not produce a poll bounce no matter how much the LD leadership claims it shows they’re “strong”.