大象传媒

It is a very interesting time to be watching politics in the UK.

Clegg and the LibDems have a much stronger hand in the coalition than is generally acknowkledged. If Labour or left LibDems suceed in painting Clegg et al as mere figleafs then the coalition is unlikely to survive. Cameron on the other hand has a task to keep the old ugly right of the Toires under control.

The two of them are locked in a mutually supporting dance. If the coalition goes down Clegg will face the prospect of splitting the party or an election. Cameron, however, would lose a chance to achieve genuine change in the country without the social divisions of Thatcher.

After this conference the LibDems will have effectively commmitted the Coalition to:

1. A proper crack down on tax evasion and avoidance (see Whistling Neil in previous thread); and

2. A delay to Trident.

In my view the LibDems also need to be able to portray "benefit cuts" as "benefits reform" with a narrative of getting people back to work. For this to look even marginally credible there will have to be some posiitive programmes to assist in the process. Maybe Vince can get some old fashiooned industry policy in this way.

Right on again Nick. This is starting to form an uneasy habit.

For years the Liberal Democrat message has been one of promoting co-operation with other parties and preaching the benefits of co-alition Government, so to me as an average floating voter it would've seemed bizarre in the very least if they had refused to enter a co-alition the only time that they have been seriously offered it. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems correctly made the only sensible choice that was open to them.

The problem is that apart from Vince Cable the Lib Dems have given no distinctive voice. If they play "the long game" and don't find their voice soon they will forever be tarnished as Tory stooges and once an image gets formed in people's minds it is very hard to shify (ask Michael Howard!).

Clegg has swallowed the Tory Cuts programme whole says there is no alternative - yet he campaigned on an alternative just six months ago. The budget will hit the poor hardest and yet there is no Lib Dem protest. And they are putting all their eggs in the "miserable reform" (Clegg's words) of the Alternative Vote system.

Even with AV the Lib Dems may get annhilated. Because how will they attract any alternative votes when they have not provided an alternative voice.

Has the LibDem conference gone right?

Well the decision to hold it in the middle of a area of private property - thereby keeping the demonstrators well away - was a good move.

Is this the first time the LibDems have been subject to this kind of hatred?

I see it as essential for the Lib Dems to make the coalition work in order to prove the case for any change to the voting system. Regardless of the fairness of proportional voting systems, I'd find it difficult to vote for such a change if two of the parties would always refuse (or fail) to form a coalition with the third.

The Lib Dems are due to defend over two thousand council seats this coming May.

Let's see how happy their activists will be when those start falling like ninepins.

In Tory areas they've always portrayed themselves as the only realistic opposition to the Conservatives - 'Labour cannot win here'. Well, that's not going to wash any more.

In Labour areas they've always been the only realistic opposition to Labour - 'Tories can't win here'. That goes out of the window too.

Shall we start the bidding at 1000 seats lost, 1200? 1300? Do I hear 1400? You Sir, in the yellow tie and sandals at the back - 1500??

Nice analogy but a bit stretched?

I mean, is our Nick comparing Nick Clegg with George Best?

On the women front, 'Cleggover' is in the Blue Square compared to Prem player George Best.

30 Women?

Best was just warming up.

However, the rebarbative Clegg is now in the political Premiership - so where did it all go right (or wrong as Lord Ashcroft complains).

We all know what happened to George Best in the end, don't we? Could be a good analogy!

There is no way the Lib Dems will come out of this with any credibility whatsoever. With the cuts just around the corner the Con-Dem coalition can only be described as 'Christmas' for the Labour party. I have no doubt it will end (probably long before 2015) with both parties in oblivion for a generation.

The Libdem's need an answer to the cancer eating at the heart of the coalition namely that whilst the libdem's genuinely believe they are cutting with a heavy heart out of economic necesscity the Tories are doing so gleefully out of ideological purity.

I have been a long term supporter of PR as it is fundamentally more democratic. However I was taught a lesson by seeing the main minority party betray a large number of its voters to gain power. Now I see how minority parties behave I will vote against PR in May. Has Clegg got it right- only time will tell however he has shattered the illusion that the LibDems are a party of principles they are just like the Tories and Labour. They want power at any price. The electorate will remember a party leader and a party that sold its principles for a few seats in government.

Are any Lib Dem supporters- i.e. those who support the Lib Dems based on what they stand for, and their policies actually upset about the current situation?

The only people complaining seem to be the ones who were sick of Labour, but basically wanted to see a copy of Labour policies- i.e. those protest voters mentioned in the article.

People who support the Lib Dems because of their policies and what they stand for have little reason to be upset, the current government is pushing policy that aligns much more closely to the Lib Dem's manifesto than any of the alternatives given the election outcome possibly could have.

I suspect those complaining and saying they wouldn't vote Lib Dem are merely those who were sick of Labour, but didn't want to see the Tories get in either, rather than those who actually understand what the Lib Dems stand for and support that ideology.

No one in the Lib-Dem party (or anyone voting for them for that matter) ever thought that they would be in power. It is not the political party you expect to have any say in the running of the country. Certainly not at a national government level.

So pity those poor delegates gathering in Liverpool for their party conference. They must be running around like headless chickens. No longer pointless resolutions that look good in the local parish magazine or in some rural council chamber.

Now they are playing with the big boys.

Reading through the comments it becomes blindingly obvious that there's a whole cellar-full of Labour suporters dedicated to trying to undermine the coalition by picking away at the LibDems. Sour grapes perhaps?

Comments about Tories implementing policy based on ideology are more than a little rich coming after Blair and Brown blew my children's future to support a failed model that coincidentally (?) generated thousands more voters that should be grateful to Labour for their jobs. And they still lost!

Bah Humbug! (Christmas nearly here, but a cold one for Brown's faithful, wandering in the chilly wilderness desperately looking for Good King Weneceslas)

To me I see very little difference between LibDem and Conservative.

Many of the things I agree with seem to come from either one or the other or both in many cases.

The problems seem to come from the LibDem delegates themselves. They are frightened after being seen as a protest party just sitting on the fence disagreeing with everthing and anything anyone else did they will now have to be grown up and accept responsibility.

Some inevitably will but others never will and it is those who should question whether they should really be involved in politics at all or just join a local protest group and carry on where they left off.

Chuntering away somewhere about some petty subject ot another which will make no difference at all to the overwhelming problems of the country.

Clegg's dilemna is that everybody expected the conservatives to be doing what they are, most are not sure what the libdems are all about after so long out of power and don't really know they are doing what they should. The conservative party machine has played on that and by giving them five cabinet seats, most notably Treasury secretary and Business minister, have pushed them beyond the role of just making up the numbers into a role of being to blame for the discomfort being handed out. By the way dear old Vince is remarkably quiet of late, unlike George Best he and the rest of the libdem leadership have only ever been in the reserves.

Me thinks the tory doth protest too much PercyPants.

There is a big difference between the sort of 'committed' person who attends Party Conferences (or even these political blogs) and the general public.

According to a Times poll out today, 4 out of 5 Lib-Dem voters would still have voted the same way, even if they'd known in advance that the Lib-Dems would become part of the Coalition.

This Government has politicians working in it from the Tory, Lib-Dem and Labour Parties and, IMHO, is exactly what is required just now, given the looming fiscal difficulties.

It may have gone all alright for Mr Clegg. Disregarding political alliance, I never thought I would see a day in British politics when a leaders stood up and admits to his party that to get a little bit of power he has had to give most of the Lib Dem polices away.
The party may not mind that Mr Clegg does, but the people who voted Lib Dem do. Not only is it totally 鈥榰n ethical鈥� but it is a disgrace.
Those of us that voted Lib Dem have been betrayed. Power for polices that have made a Demolition Government.

Reply to 13:

That's just the point - the Lib Dems fail to see that probably half (maybe more) of their support was an attracted protest vote. Without that reason (in a proper proportional system) there are very many people who will not vote Lib Dem.

And I know of scores of Lib Dem activists (not voters, but activists) who are deeply upset at the direction the coalition are taking (don't remember the LD manifesto proposing to cut baby bonds which poor people took up in great numbers, or cutting swathes through the NHS, or hitting the poor five times as hard as the rich when cutting).

The pure LD vote may stick with you but as polls show that is worth about 10% of the population.

Heard Diane Abbott on QT say to the four suited men , I never heard you say there were anyproblem when you where in the cabinet or words to that effect, so had that KILLED the labour goose stone dead,

many be we will see labour lose massively to the lib dems and ZaNU_liebour become a rump hard left party like the past

Are any of these analogies really accurate or helpful at all?

The only thing to remember is the choice between the party that brought you Iraq, extraodinary rendition, and the biggest peacetime deficit on record and the other two.

Simples.

It's a great time to be a tory...or a libdem

A tired and weak analogy to set the scene for your article. Try a bit harder.

"Me thinks the tory doth protest too much PercyPants."

Wasn't that what I said? Oh wait, no...

Methinks the lefties dressed up as LibDems doth protest too much.

That was it, silly me...

Nick, remind me were did Mr Bet end up?

As Best effectively admitted much, much later - and too late to save himself - the waiter was right, for he was at that very moment Best was indulging his penchant for self-destruction. So maybe the Nick Robinson School of Analogies is taking us into a deeper reading and suggesting that in due time we'll witness the premature death of the Lib Dems as a result of their present intoxication with and soon-to-be-evident addiction to power and its trappings. Is this the real lesson Nick wants us to draw from his analogy??? :-)

You make some intersting points Nick and the George Best analogy is amusing even if Mr.Best himself met a sad end.

On the subject of austerity and spending cuts are the Lib Dems aware of what is going on in Ireland and Portugal? It might give those in favour of austerity some more food for thought.I understand that Irish and Portuguese government bond yields are rising and some are even suggesting that Ireland should call in the IMF.

Worrying isn't it - did Nick choose the analogy carelessly? or carefully?

&ltbites nails&gt

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The problem for the Lib Dems imho is that the majority of people vote because they agree with the majority of a political parties policies.

Nick Clegg seems to have mixed his party up with a football team, he seems to think he's wont the cup by being in government.

Tearing up the parties election manifesto for a bit part in the coalition government is too high a price to pay.

Shame on you Mr Clegg!

Personally I think it's good to see the Lib Dems in coalition and having these interesting and worthwhile debates internally. With the lack of a strong, credible opposition in the form of Labour maybe the Lib Dems will be the opposition from within, holding the excesses of the Cons in check.
I could see that if Labour back the unions through their militancy they will spend a long time in the political wilds and maybe the Lib Dems will become the natural opposition.

The whole point in voting for a third party is that one day they could get into coalition with a larger party and thus accrue credibility.

This is what has happened so I just don't understand those who are moaning about it. What did they expect?

There are those who have viewed the Liberal Democrats as Labour-lite. Given that Labour also had a cost cutting agenda before and during the election which they have avoided spelling out - no surprises there - then it can be argued that the Liberal Democrats have behaved totally consistently.

I think what sticks in the craw of many on the Left is that the Liberal Democrats have cut a deal with the vicious Tories. This deal includes cutting expenditure thus, according to this view, making everyone poor.

I am just relieved that at long last there is a government not seeking to bribe the electorate with its own money. This might be a political accident but it does make a nice change.

It remains early days for the coalition. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. So long as they reform the banks and put the economy on the road to a rational restructuring then it would be worth it.

My own concern is that the Tory right might find it all too much to digest. This is where the weak link is, not on the left of the coalition. But then not many Tories are going to defect to Labour over public expenditure are they: a seat in the Lords perhaps or even a place in the Cabinet but never over anything which is about numbers and adding up.

Far be it for this blogger to be picky, but ... in his Conference speech, Nick Clegg has just said that Labour left the coffers empty.

Untrue.

Labour inherited coffers that were already minus 拢320Bn and when they left office the coffers were minus 拢740Bn or thereabouts.

Therefore Labour depleted the already depleted coffers by about another 拢400Bn or so.

Nearly bottomless pit of debt might be a better description of the national balance sheet rather than 'coffers'.

With the Conservatives occupying the centre and centre-right and the LibDems occupying the centre-left, there is no space left for Labour but the far left. I think Labour are in terminal trouble now and will come third in future elections.

#23 rockrobin

I'm intrigued by you signing off, "It's a great time to be a tory"

Can I say it is always a good time to be a socialist because it is about working for collectivism, whereas you can only be happy when you are in power, that's because it's about selfishness.

It's actually a great time to be a socialist.

Being politicians, they cannot help facing at least two ways simultaneously.

For example, in his speech, Clegg is indulges in some 'bank-bashing' to assist in bringing his audience onside.

But in those private ministerial conversations, the imperative to covertly assist the banks in rebuilding their balance sheets continues, so that the spread, between the Bank Base Rate and the mortgage rate that muggins Joe Public is now paying, is a yawning gulf.

Politics - a deceptive game.

Has Glegg been converted.With his arms outstetched like that mybe he's asking for a to believe him.Some hope.

So an arrogant, negative, says-a-lot-but-does-nothing, pompous man such as this is the only way the Lib Dems gained and are holding onto power.

If that's what the party is all about then I've seriously misunderstood them.

Message to Nick Robinson. It is damn hard trying to find your blog which I always used to enjoy reading. Tell the 大象传媒 to make it more accessable. Now for the Lib Dem Conference. Long Termism - Ok in the future. Does this mean when all the debts are paid and the country (even though no one seems able to define the country) is solvent then we can have our pay rises, tax reductions, return of a much needed public sector, and winter fuel payments. If so, let us ride with Clegg till the good times roll. Or are the austerity measures designed for something else? All this light at the end of the tunnel is very confusing. Like trying to find your blog.

The big worry in Scotland is that such is the hatred of the Tory party up here the Tory/LibDem coalition could cause a Labour win at Holyrood next year as voters desert the LibDems for Labour.

If that happens the economic consequences for Scotland will be frightening.

Could it be the grass roots of the party whom wanted a voting change only everythough this would means an alliance with the Labour party and this was the only real reason for this voting change. BUT it has landed them with the Tories much to there vexation.

The questuion are they prepared to be in governemet when very tough decisions are to be made, something Brown refused to make. As if he had started with a moderate prune 3 years ago we would not be in such a titantic mess. He was pledging spending for polictal reasons such as 2 aircraft carriers and 22 new chinooks clearly knowing that they could not be afforded.

Because if the libs are not prepared to support the "right" actions and Mr E balls actions are in a fantasy land, left them pull out and have another election soon

I just heard a liberal democrate as usual, winging about Labour (which is now very boring), adding that they are 'grown up politicians'. Ha ha. What a laugh. Nick Clegg looks and behaves like a public school BOY Cameron lookalike, puffed up with his only success and his own self importance. No chance of a grown up argument there if the only thing they can proffer by way of argument is - it's all labour's fault in lieu of real grown up arguments.

I agree that the Labour henchmen are doing their utmost to disrupt Libdem supporters.
I truly believe that if Labour where in power that the policies wouldn't be that different. All the parties are Liberally minded and long may it continue!

In case you missed it, Nick, 'feeling pretty damn good' killed George, as it probably will the LibDems - or at least these LibDems.

Just listened to Nick Clegg's speech and was very impressed. He is a natural speaker anyway but he made some very good points that blows labour argument out of the water. The scale of the cuts for example, I thought it was very good the way he pointed out that even after the parliament we will still be spending more as a proportion of gdp than in 2006 so shrinking the state for idealogical reasons is nonsense. He also pointed out that it is not fair to pass the debt on to the next generation. I don't think there is any way back for labour until they acknowledge this.

I have to say that I was hoping the Lib Dems may have had a bit more sway than they have. I am totally behind the cuts, and I'm behind asking those who have made their riches from this country to dip that bit deeper into their cash boxes also. But I'm still to see any of their policies actually coming to fruition.
I know there has been a lot to do, so maybe there is more behind-the-scenes stuff going on, but up until this major conference the Lib Dem message hasn't been anywhere near as strong as it was on the run up to the election. Let's hope there is a long term game.

I voted Lib Dem in a simple attempt to keep Labour out. It didn't work in my constituency of Rochdale where, despite 'bigotgate', the Labour candidate still got in. Sigh.

But I think the Lib Dems need to wake up and smell the roses. This coalition is the nearest they're going to get to power. If they achieve their aim of PR I certainly won't be voting Lib Dem again as, like thousands of others, I only voted for them tactically in the first place.

Not only would Lib Dem support slump under PR as voters in previously die-hard Labour or Tory seats start showing their true colours, but we'll be condemned to these coalition shenanigans after every election as we'll rarely see an outright majority.

So, Lib Dems had better get used to being the minor voice in a coalition and stop moaning about it - it's more than they deserve with that share of the vote anyway.

The ratio of 4 out of 5 being supportive, if not enthusiastic, sounds about right: they weren't voting labour for a reason, and if a centre party in a 'three party' democracy is able to contemplate a coalition with only one of the other main parties it may as well merge with that party. And certainly give up on achieving genuine PR, which mandates coalitions.
Those particularly now outraged by a 'betrayal' were either not thinking when they voted Lib Dem or, dare say, never voted Lib Dem in the first place....

When I was at school, my best friend was from a family of Liberals. His father stood, unsuccessfully as a candidate. It wasn't too hard to want to be near the centre in 1979 - 81, after an awakening period in life characterised by strikes, power cuts, hard left and hard right, followed by watching my fellow pupils suddenly start hating Argies, when I do not think it possible that one of them had met a single Argentinian in their life...........

So began the life of a political orphan, not agreeing with the fundamental approach of Unions against Maggie, thinking that the country would be the only thing that would suffer as two bunches of extremists tore the country apart............

I listened to, mostly, young Tories in the Cambridge Union Society. They were witty, eloquent, but I didn't hear much policy. The SDP came and went, but the concept of concensus didn't seem to appear anywhere.

I saw through Blair immediately, sadly for me. Many people had great hopes, I saw a status quo coming along. Oh the language was more hopeful, but the reality, if you weren't 'one of them', was the same.

I reckoned, in 2001, that the politcs of the 21st century was going to be different. To begin with, it looked like the Tories might commit suicide. The Libdems fought like tigers, building a bridgehead a bit like a new Premier League side does. A Stoke City, a Birmingham, that sort of thing. But they weren't a national force.

Finally, in 2005, it became clear to me that tribal loyalties were breaking down. Fewer and fewer were tribal in their politics and the general election showed that. The time was ripe for change and it was time for the Liberal Democrats to grasp that time.

That meant a professional fighting machine. Organisation. A coherent policy platform that could be costed. Facing up to the reality of defence if in administration. Deciding what was core, what was aspirational, what were childish dreams.

That's when Nick Clegg came in. He can express things extremely well, the question some of the party had was, was he expressing what they felt or what he felt would get them closer to power.

My judgement on 2010 was this: the Libdems presentation of their position was better than the other two parties, although the content still needed to be honed in some areas.

But the election arithmetic worked out right. People wanted Labour out, but weren't totally sold on the Tories. Time for change had come.

That's when you find out about people as politicians. Are they demagogues, orators or pragmatic dealmakers? How strong are their principles, what will they negotiate away? Those are actually the fundamental questions in politics, because the rest is rhetoric and party organisation.

I can't quite credit Libdem party members not wanting some of their programmes to be implemented in hard times. Power isn't just about good times, you know. It's about playing the hand that is dealt. Some PMs must cut and be unpopular, others can inherit oil wealth and spend. History will judge them on the situations they dealt with, not on their short-term popularity..........

I see little to date to say that the Libdems are doing much wrong in the Coalition. The Tory Right are bashing them. Surprise, surprise. The left are bashing them. Surprise, surprise. There are some hotspots of contention in the coalition programme. Surprise, surprise.

But at the end of it all, if you'd asked diehard Liberals in 1980 whether they would take being Coalition partners rather than a small fringe party, I think they'd take it.

And if you ask Libdems now whether they are sufficiently democratic to accept that the Tories had a greater right to be partners than Labour, then I hope that they would say Yes. Like it or not, because if they don't, then I hope we hear no more about electoral 'fairness'.

Electoral fairness and coalitions are part of adult politics.

The Libdem Leadership embraced adult politics this year.

It will be ultimate irony of ironies if their membership decide they'd prefer to be children..............

#36 "collectivism" is this where we ALL have to dress the same and do the same except the elite ruling class as in china and clod war russia.

if thats the case then I want none of that centralised control thanks.

#34 Think we need a debate on why we need a national debt ,for wars etc but for funding a soviet style spending splurge in vested interest areas?

Seems to me the Lib Dems have only two decisions to come to terms with.

One is can they show that coalition government, which is the natural consequence of their objective of proportional representation, will work. Because if PR gets voted in they will be facing this same dilemma Parliament after Parliament after Parliament.

The second is can they accept that coalition government does not mean getting your way on everything. If you are in coalition you have to accept that you won't get everything you want and you may well get some things you positively don't want. Especially if your party is the partner least people voted for.

Unless they can get their heads around these two issues, what is their future as a party? A dog in the manger that won't work with anyone unless they get to call all the shots? That really is the way to become a footnote in history.

The Tories are the ones who are the extreme, is what is what is reported, a big party which wants cuts ,cuts cuts, but maybe it is the other way round. The Gang of Four split if not mistaken, from Labour in the 1980s, presumably extreme Tories have joined the Lib Dems on the right, but the Coalition on the Lib Dems are dead. The polls out for Yougov say the Lib Dems are on 12 per cent. Impeachment is the next step.

re #52
Agreed. Long overdue.

11. At 12:30pm on 20 Sep 2010, SotonBlogger wrote:

The Libdem's need an answer to the cancer eating at the heart of the coalition namely that whilst the libdem's genuinely believe they are cutting with a heavy heart out of economic necesscity the Tories are doing so gleefully out of ideological purity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I hear this said and see it written. What evidence do you have for this 'Tory glee'?

rjagger@50

Long but v interesting post.

I don't think you have too much to worry about. In the end Cameron needs Clegg more than the other way around. Not the way I would choose to have it but a description of reality nonetheless.

I believe the Liberal Democrats have taken a gamble. However, the problem with gambling is that sometimes you lose. I have a more lengthy analysis that may be of interest to readers here:

But Thom - politics is always a gamble and sometimes you win. What would you have done if you were Clegg after the election - gone into coalition with Labour?

Interesting read. For a slightly different perspective see: which is pretty well written.

Did Charles Kennedy like Clegg's Speech, or is he getting ready to jump Ship along with HIS Crew???

Come to think of it, Charlie Boy was nowhere to be seen by the TV Camera panning after Clegg's Speech. O'Dear, a bad Oman, or what.

#61

I don't think Oman is that bad a place??

Now a bad Omen - that's a completely different matter 8-)

53#

Well said Tom. Common sense. Pity more of the sloganeers dont - or wont, more like - see this.

50#

Good post, well thought out and considered. Nice one.

#11

The evidence of my own eyes, during the election campaign I chatted to Tory activists outside our local railway station on a number of occasions and their glee at getting an opportunity to slash the public sector was palpable.

"65. At 10:50am on 21 Sep 2010, SotonBlogger wrote:

#11

The evidence of my own eyes, during the election campaign I chatted to Tory activists outside our local railway station on a number of occasions and their glee at getting an opportunity to slash the public sector was palpable."

During the election campaign, I remember chatting to some Labour activists who salivated at the prospect of raising more taxes and piling the money up in a big bonfire before setting it alight. "We've tried to waste it in more pointless ways but this one is the best yet" they cackled.

65#

But, as the Libs conference is proving, its not the activists that actually make the decisions though, is it?

Perish the thought of someone like Bevanite Ellie deciding what the future Labour manifesto in 2015 should look like...

#65
"...their glee at getting an opportunity to slash the public sector was palpable..."

It's all in the language, isn't it. Was it 'glee' or joyful satisfaction?

AndyC555 is being a touch naughty at #66, but the point is well made - policy will always be informed by ideology. To try and 'blame' Tories for that is iniquitous, since any party stands for election to try and convert its policies into action.

And as poor old Georgie found out it can be very short-lived; within a couple of years his career was over.

However, football isn't politics; it's not just about winning at any costs, it's about principles, ideology and morality as well.

Unless, of course, you're Nick Clegg.

And he should remember how ruthless the LDs can be: look at how they got rid of Ming once they'd decided that they couldn't have an 'older' leader.

Thats a really funny article, for about the first time I like it Mr Robinson. Of course the only quote I know from Georgie Best is going to sound positively clunking from Cleggy "I spent a lot of political capital on Dave and high office and the rest I just squandered" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

Loved the George Best story!!

Indeed, the present conference indicated why the Lib Dems, as personified by a large swathe of their activists, are totally unsuited to government. Why is it, that a party that has campaigned for years, has made an article of faith out voting reform to bring about more proportional representation with a view to taking its rightful place in coalition government, suddenly finds that it doesn't like coalition government?

It's astonishing that Nick Clegg has to spell out to these hardened advocates of uber-democracy that being in a coalition requires policy compromise. That being very much the junior partner of a coalition necessitates a good deal of compromise. Yet, despite seeing a good number of the LIb-Dems cherished policy objectives bought into the Government's programme, despite being in office for the first time in two generations, activists are outraged that their full wish list is not being implemented immediately! You can almost hear the petulant stamping of sandals!

This is worrying because, far from being interested in inclusive democracy, the strident demand for coalition government seems really just an attempted power-grab by means other than simply appealing to the majority of voters.

I have long wondered at the Lib Dems. I suspect that Nick Clegg too is probably asking himself the question "what do you losers want???" I suspect that, as usual, the Liberals are demonstrating that, like small children, they just don't know what they want to do!. The party includes some very wise heads but it seems that the rank & file is composed of those happy to take a smugly principled stand against just about everything without any really sense about what they might actually do instead. Politically, this is lazy and contemptible.

I'm still quite pleased with the coalition. It's an unlikely partnership but it may just contain the type of creative tension that will allow sensible government by canceling out each parties respective "nutter" wing. I wouldn't want Nick Clegg's job of corralling such a bunch of clueless nincompoops though at any price!

"69. At 12:32pm on 21 Sep 2010, JonBW2 wrote:
And as poor old Georgie found out it can be very short-lived; within a couple of years his career was over."

11 years with Man U.

I'm sure we'd all be grateful for 11 years without Labour.

12, Eddythered wrote:
"I have been a long term supporter of PR as it is fundamentally more democratic. However I was taught a lesson by seeing the main minority party betray a large number of its voters to gain power. Now I see how minority parties behave I will vote against PR in May."

Eddy - PR has always implied the likelihood (or even probability) that two or more opposing parties have to compromise their full manifesto "commitments" in order to form a majority government.

So why were you so shocked by a coalition?

And, by the way, there is no vote about PR planned for May.
It's a vote about a different form of a majoritarian system. One where the first votes of every elector are taken into account at the first count - but where the second votes for the least successful candidates then carry more weight than others and the second choices of the most successful candidate's supporters won't be counted at all.
Lousy suggestion. Rotten proposed change. NOTHING to do with PR.

Yeah but George Best was a class act - with Clegg it's the other way round.

I see Vince is warning the banks about bonuses. That should drastically curtail the bonuses. You don't think the banks would just go ahead and pay them out anyway do you?

34, JohnConstable wrote:
Far be it for this blogger to be picky, but ... in his Conference speech, Nick Clegg has just said that Labour left the coffers empty.
Untrue. Labour inherited coffers that were already minus 拢320Bn and when they left office the coffers were minus 拢740Bn or thereabouts.
Therefore Labour depleted the already depleted coffers by about another 拢400Bn or so.
Nearly bottomless pit of debt might be a better description of the national balance sheet rather than 'coffers'.

JohnC,
I'm nit-picking your nit-picking...

Coffers are where you keep your money.

Early on, when Brown was Chancellor, there was enough tax-take money for him to follow Ken Clark's budget plans - so he actually paid down some national debt. Why - because there was money in the coffers...

The major issue was that, post 2001, the administration was not content with the significant tax-take and decided to borrow to spend.
So the tax-take went into the coffers and disappeared, but borrowing was deliberately used as a way of delivering....
What, exactly?

IF the UK had been run in a sensible way, the national debt could still have declined and eventually there would be some money left in "the coffers" at the end of a finacial year. Now we are having to borrow to pay the interest on the national debt.

Gordon Brown was a great economist, wasn't he?

I don't really care which party "runs" the UK. But I dislike any of them who mess with finances that could impact my children in a really bad way. Blair and Brown conspired (probably knowingly or because nobody really took charge - Blair should have sacked Brown) to make a real mess.

Thanks a bunch.

Vince warning the banks?

What was that old quote... ah yes.... "like being savaged by a dead sheep".....

#51 ir35

No.

You show signs of being brainwashed, try reading more widely.

12, Eddythered wrote:
"I have been a long term supporter of PR as it is fundamentally more democratic. However I was taught a lesson by seeing the main minority party betray a large number of its voters to gain power. Now I see how minority parties behave I will vote against PR in May."

What were you hoping for from a minority party? they have someof their policies in place (capital gains higher rate, increased tax PAs) and have curbed some of the Tories policies. Was it your expectation that a minority party could get everything it wanted?

Or are you just disaponited that you didn't get the election result you wanted? In which case you could start campaigning for the "I'll only be happy with the electoral system if I get exactly the result I want" movement.

Caving on the cuts isn't a good example of a working coalition and it sure as hell isn't compromise. There are no needs for these cuts to be made so deeply and so quickly, no need whatsoever and the Lib Dems know this, hence why they campaigned about such big cuts.

This is too big an issue for the Lib Dems to cave in on it, they should have sought compromise, instead they sought an office a hop and skip away from the prime minister.

@72 '11 years with Man U.

I'm sure we'd all be grateful for 11 years without Labour.'

The 'where did it all go wrong?' story happened once Best's career was in decline, with the glory of 1968 well behind him.

I suspect that it will now prove downhill all the way for Clegg, though it may well be the Tories, rather than Labour, that benefit.