Border Reiver
Active Member
In retrospect the coalition was preferable to subsequent majority Tory governments of Cameron, May, and Johnson.
Shirley Williams defects to the Celestial Alliance
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billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
What if the coalition was a gateway drug? The Tories' vicious intent was there all along but was introduced more palatably because it was leavened with superficial Lib Dems 'we're trying to be nice' rhetoric for five years, after which the country was far more ready to ask for the unadulterated hard stuff.
There's no way of knowing for sure if that's right because there's no counterfactual to test it against. But at a local and a national level, historically, I don't think you can say the Lib Dems have facilitated the left keeping the right out any more than they've facilitated the opposite. So I stand by my assessment that it's very unwise to trust them beyond the socially liberal veneer.
Border Reiver
Active Member
All you need to know is that the Tories are in control for another four years. We have had fifty years of civil war between the two halves of what was once the Labour Party and its consequent inability to play nicely with other non Tory parties has led us here.
Imagine if Tony Blair had followed through on an anti Tory government in 1997 and introduced a proportional voting system, the Tories would have not been in power since. Labour (both wings) has caused this.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
I'm not arguing with you out of any love for the Labour Party. It's suited both main parties to perpetuate a ridiculous voting system. What I would dispute is that there's anything more principled about the way the Lib Dems have operated. Their willingness to place nicely with anyone who'll give them a sniff of the whip handle has also led us here.
Border Reiver
Active Member
The question is "Are you happy with the outcome?" Continuing to be more exercised about other parties or other factions than Tories is just irrational.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The libdems enabled vicious so-called austerity. That five-year government did enormous damage.
Cameron stitched them up as well. They weren't a coalition, not really. The libdems did not control a single important government department. Ironic really, given that they're the party who want pr and coalitions, that they couldn't negotiate for themselves any real power or influence over anything.
Border Reiver
Active Member
And are you happy with perpetual Tory rule. Bearing a grudge against the LibDems will guarantee Conservative governments. By 2023 the LibDems will get their usual end of Tory government bounce.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
No I'm not happy with perpetual tory rule, but the 2010-15 government was very much a part of that perpetual tory rule. Anyone thinking the libdems somehow made them better is kidding themselves. The libdems provided cover for the tories to be even worse.
I strongly favour pr fwiw, but I think the current Labour Party would probably then need to split (similar to Spain - the breakaway to the left, not the right) to give us any chance of a left of centre government. (I don't count Blair as left of centre, btw, for context. We haven't really had a left of centre government since about 1976.)
Border Reiver
Active Member
Well if you will the ends you must will the means. Labour alone is never going to form a government in the foreseeable future. An anti-Tory alliance is the only way. That requires working with allies, not fighting civil or other wars.
Border Reiver
Active Member
Not interested in left wing. Just not Toryism.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I would argue that such a situation can already exist when the circumstances arise. There was a real possibility of a very wide-ranging coalition in 2017 had the tories not been able to squeak a majority with the DUP. The maths wasn't quite there, but there was willingness to do it.
Border Reiver
Active Member
In order to form a non tory coalition, Labour would need to compromise. It cannot even compromise with each of its own wings. What coalition on what program would you suggest was possible? Would it grant a Scottish referendum? Would it offer cabinet posts to LibDems?
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
Labour will (tediously) refuse to discuss any of this stuff in advance of an election and won't countenance any compromise but would stitch something up quickly with the Lib Dems / SNP over the heads of the membership in a heartbeat to get Starmer into number 10. And of course, there is the minority government option, it doesn't have to be a formal coalition.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Baroness Shirley has gone to the afterworld to have an honest conversation with god about what can really be delivered from his utopian agenda given the current difficult constraints on...
Border Reiver
Active Member
A minority government excluding the SNP would be interesting if the SNP simply abstained from voting on any non Scottish legislation. England then would likely have an effectiveTory government administered by the Labour Party. Inherently ridiculous. The SNP would d land a referendum. If that resulted in separation then Labour would be out office for a generation; it is a poison pill.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
that might be her intention but I think she will be sent downstairs to implement a social market in the provision of hellfire and stabby forks.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
certainly. she'll have been referred to Hell where she will currently be in intesive negotiations with the Devil in order to mitigate some of his worst excesses, and more egregious breaches of human rights.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
Totally with both paragraphs of this.
Border Reiver you would suggest that by going on about the Lib Dems I'm missing the point about the real, bigger enemy. My point was that the Lib Dems shouldn't be trusted to oppose that bigger enemy, not least because if they achieved anything in coalition, it was to enable that bigger enemy. The electorate was fresh enough from the comparative social liberalism (on some issues) of the Blair/Brown years that the appearance of softer edges that the Lib Dems helped to give Cameron's Tories, despite many of the latter's policies and actions (including before 2015) making Thatcher look like a wimp, played a significant part in making them palatable enough to get re-elected without Lib Dem support the next time. It's even possible - though granted far from a cert - that a limping Cameron minority govt following 2010 would have been so weak as to not be able to cement the further decade of Tory rule that we've since had to put up with.
Border Reiver
Active Member
Without compromise with LibDems and SNP, Labour stand no chance of government. If that fact is not acknowledged, you are supporting continued Tory rule. Your choice.
I am quite happy with Tory rule in Westminster as it is the main driving force behind the drive for Scottish independence.
ska invita
back on the other side
come now, credit where its due
Lib Dems backed benefit sanctions to win 5p carrier bag charge
A Lib Dem wonk has claimed credit for the plastic bag charge - saying all it took was agreeing more attacks on welfare
www.socialistparty.org.uk
"It is now so cool to ban plastic, it's the government's go-to policy to move the news on from a bad story. Worth reflecting on how far we've come in the last four years...
"Lib Dem ministers started agitating for a 5p charge on plastic bags. It took us months to persuade Cameron and Osborne.
"We finally got the policy in an eve-of-conference trade, in return for tightening benefit sanctions."
I console myself that since the Lib Dem won in my constituency I helped a prevent a Tory majority. As bad as the coalition was, and as limp as the LDs were in it, I have few doubts that a purely Tory government would've been worse, however marginally.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't agree. By coopting the libdems so completely, the tories both gave themselves a working majority and neutralised any opposition from the libdems. They also managed to silence their eurosceptic wing for a bit. Instead of abolishing uni fees, they tripled them, while the cuts to benefits and council grants were savage, NHS underfunding was brutal, etc, etc. All with a nice safe majority and not a peep from the libdems. A minority tory govt propped up by a loose libdem supply and confidence agreement would have done far less damage.
I was comparing what happened to a 2010 Tory majority government. I agree that the Lib Dems, or Clegg and his confidants at least, abandoned all morals when they got into government.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Why?
The longevity of the coalition showed the very strong ideological agreement that ran through the Cameron/Osbourne section of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, both socially liberal, both economically 'dry'. In fact the coalition agreement allowed more viscous cuts than would have been the case under a pure Tory/LD government - each section of the party could blame the actions as 'compromises' made on the basis of the coalition. The idea that the LDs 'held the Tories back' is a fantasy.
In the coalition government the biggest resistance to austerity measures came not from the Liberal Democrats but from patrician Tories that felt some of the measures were going too far. The Tory manifesto of 2019 was economically to the left of the LDs (as well as the Labour 2010 and 2015 manifestos).
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come now, credit where its due
"Polly Mackenzie was a policy director for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg under the Tory-Liberal coalition government. On 19 April, she told Twitter:Lib Dems backed benefit sanctions to win 5p carrier bag charge
A Lib Dem wonk has claimed credit for the plastic bag charge - saying all it took was agreeing more attacks on welfare
"It is now so cool to ban plastic, it's the government's go-to policy to move the news on from a bad story. Worth reflecting on how far we've come in the last four years...
"Lib Dem ministers started agitating for a 5p charge on plastic bags. It took us months to persuade Cameron and Osborne.
"We finally got the policy in an eve-of-conference trade, in return for tightening benefit sanctions."
That reminds me of that utterly disgusting Orange Book ideologue Clegg coming out with that utterly disgusting phrase 'Alarm Clock Britain!'
Dog-whistle or what??
And don't pretend you weren't actively collaborating with this claimant-demonising and 'benefit-scrounger' punishment-regime, Clegg, you foul piece of shit!
Him losing his seat in 2017 was a Portillo moment for me
(Also, slightly more thread-relevantly, did 'Lady' Williams ever criticise any of that? Of course she fucking didn't!
)
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
(Also, slightly more thread-relevantly, did 'Lady' Williams ever criticise any of that? Of course she fucking didn't!
Virtually none of the lovely, cuddly left-wing element of the party did anything to rock the boat once it was clear that following Clegg's lead was a more effective route to a junior ministerial position than the 'principled alternative to Labour' schtick they'd peddled since the Iraq war.
Him losing his seat in 2017 was a Portillo moment for me
Yes Clegg losing his seat was one of my all time Golden Moments.
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