4 Comments

• Eddie Sammon 15th Feb '15 - 8:22pm

  Lib Dems are going to be needed in parliament in 2015, and possibly coalition, just as much as in 2010. Imagine a Labour-SNP alliance dismantling the UK, posturing over austerity, increasing taxes and interest rates?

  A Tory-UKIP alliance could take us out of the EU and inflict nasty policies across the board.

  This is why we need to campaign and not spend time debating whether Clegg is a tory double agent, or whatever theories people come out with about him on here.

  Well done for the campaigning.

• stuart moran 15th Feb '15 - 9:57pm

  Imagine a LD-Con coalition posturing over deficit reduction, cutting spending and dismantling much of our public services – oh and as well as giving the SNP another excuse for another referendum?

  After the next election the only represented national party will probably be Labour (discounting NI) as there will be no Tories, Lib Dem or UKIP to speak of outside the South of England! Do you think that is going to help prevent the break-up of the UK if 2 of those 3 parties are in Government?

  Oh, and why is the return of interest rates to a more sustainable level seen as being bad….the current problem is that we have a deflation and countries debasing their currencies with no consequence (at the moment)

• Eddie Sammon 15th Feb '15 - 10:43pm

  Stuart Moran, I am in favour of increasing the interest rate that we charge to banks, but not the government’s borrowing costs. I should have made that more clear in my first post.

  If the Tories said they were going to dismantle the state then I am sure the Lib Dems would prefer a coalition with Labour instead. This is partly what the negotiation is going to be about.

  Anyway, unfortunately I don’t have time to get into a big debate about it, but you are right that increasing the base rate is probably a good idea. It is not the job of the Bank of England to act as the welfare state for the middle class. 🙂

• Charles Rothwell 16th Feb '15 - 9:23am

  I have donated in excess of £100.00 to the nearest LD MP standing for reelection and shall do all I can to support the Party and try and squeeze out every vote where it makes sense between now and May (i.e. NOT in constituencies where there is the slightest danger of the Kippers managing to wangle themselves into SECOND place (Farage’s REAL goal for this election so that he can launch a real bid to come near to holding the balance of power at a second general election he feels a weak Westminster government will be forced to hold in a year or so!)), but I am afraid that, with consistent ratings like this (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/02/15/labour-lead-3/) (and very little prospect in my view of some ‘last minute turn-around’ by hundreds of thousands of ‘Tories with a conscience’), the future is pretty clear. This is despite more interviews, relaunches, policy promises etc than anyone can count. I am afraid the plain and honest truth is that the Party has simply no credibility or hold any more over millions of the electorate and that what the autumn Bournemouth Conference will hence really be about will be the installation of a new Leader whom the public is prepared to trust, backed by a good supportive team and with a distinct and clear message of what precisely the Party stands for and how it can begin to win back precisely the kind of voters it has lost and who have had enough of “the Two Eds” and the other Yesterday’s People around them, are dismayed at the rise of the UK equivalent of Le Pen’s lot and want a political party to support rather than a group of wishful thinkers who (based on the experience of many Brightonians) could not run the proverbial vegan whalk stall, let alone a whole country! Bring it on!