urban Lib Dem voters! What do you think of what's going on?
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CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Well that IS where I disagree with most Urbans
In my view the corruption of the Brown government is the worst since Horace Walpole in 1745.
If you were under heavy manners from JobCentre Plus like I am, I am sure you would agree.
I had a medical interview on Friday at Irene House in Balham. The place is like a fortress. There is a thick wooden door and video answerphone.
When you ring and tell them you have an appointment, the door is opened personally by an ATOL service security guard.
The receptionist was incredibly rude - obviously an understudy for Naomi Campbell. Didn't want to pay my bus fares, or those of my "supporter".
The doc himself was obviously uncomfortable with his role. I told him he was breaking his hippocratic oath even working there, and he did not challenge that.
I asked if he was a psychiatrist (as you will be aware I have mental problems). He admitted he was not a psychiatrist - just an ordinary doctor.
In fact I thought the interview with the doc went well - but I had taken the precaution of taking in my medical file - and volunteered my discharge certificate from Charter Nightingale Hospital. After that everything went well - until I came to claim my travel costs from Naomi Campbell.
On Monday I have an appointment with Ingeus at Elephant and Castle. One of Gordon's many PPP "Partners" to assess me for "Partner Led Pathways to Employment". The will get maybe £50 or £75, just for interviewing me.
They offer six week jobseeker courses which it is very difficult to turn down. They will be getting around £650-£1000 if I go on their course.
And me only out of work for less than 2 months so far - with a virtually unbroken work record of 33 YEARS up to now.
If you ring the London Bridge Job Centre Plus to quibble about being fed into the PPP Ingeus system, the staff refuse to give their full names. Only Christian names suc as "Jet", "Cheryl", or "Travis" are allowed apparently.
What are these people frightened of? They know where WE live, but we do not know where THEY live!
I am going to print out loads of stuff about Auschwitz and give them a lecture on it during the interview. The JobCentre Plus motto seems to be "Arbeit Macht Frei" so I think I have hit the nail on the head.
The doc understood that I am having a temporary nervous breakdown and will be fit again for work in a few months. Not the JobCentre. They have targets to meet. They don't care if I am a Finance Manager (my job title for the last 20 years) or a Toilet Cleaner.
I do hope that Cameron and Clegg manage to get rid of that evil toad in 10 Downing Street!
If I was a Pentecostalist I would be preaching about "the end times". Tony Blair = Anti Christ Gordon Brown = the BEAST with 9 horns etc.
Now I know why so many preachers in Brixton are unemployed people who have "Gone Off".
In my view the corruption of the Brown government is the worst since Horace Walpole in 1745.
If you were under heavy manners from JobCentre Plus like I am, I am sure you would agree.
I had a medical interview on Friday at Irene House in Balham. The place is like a fortress. There is a thick wooden door and video answerphone.
When you ring and tell them you have an appointment, the door is opened personally by an ATOL service security guard.
The receptionist was incredibly rude - obviously an understudy for Naomi Campbell. Didn't want to pay my bus fares, or those of my "supporter".
The doc himself was obviously uncomfortable with his role. I told him he was breaking his hippocratic oath even working there, and he did not challenge that.
I asked if he was a psychiatrist (as you will be aware I have mental problems). He admitted he was not a psychiatrist - just an ordinary doctor.
In fact I thought the interview with the doc went well - but I had taken the precaution of taking in my medical file - and volunteered my discharge certificate from Charter Nightingale Hospital. After that everything went well - until I came to claim my travel costs from Naomi Campbell.
On Monday I have an appointment with Ingeus at Elephant and Castle. One of Gordon's many PPP "Partners" to assess me for "Partner Led Pathways to Employment". The will get maybe £50 or £75, just for interviewing me.
They offer six week jobseeker courses which it is very difficult to turn down. They will be getting around £650-£1000 if I go on their course.
And me only out of work for less than 2 months so far - with a virtually unbroken work record of 33 YEARS up to now.
If you ring the London Bridge Job Centre Plus to quibble about being fed into the PPP Ingeus system, the staff refuse to give their full names. Only Christian names suc as "Jet", "Cheryl", or "Travis" are allowed apparently.
What are these people frightened of? They know where WE live, but we do not know where THEY live!
I am going to print out loads of stuff about Auschwitz and give them a lecture on it during the interview. The JobCentre Plus motto seems to be "Arbeit Macht Frei" so I think I have hit the nail on the head.
The doc understood that I am having a temporary nervous breakdown and will be fit again for work in a few months. Not the JobCentre. They have targets to meet. They don't care if I am a Finance Manager (my job title for the last 20 years) or a Toilet Cleaner.
I do hope that Cameron and Clegg manage to get rid of that evil toad in 10 Downing Street!
If I was a Pentecostalist I would be preaching about "the end times". Tony Blair = Anti Christ Gordon Brown = the BEAST with 9 horns etc.
Now I know why so many preachers in Brixton are unemployed people who have "Gone Off".
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
I pointed a number of times before the election that voting Tory was not likely to work in Dulwich. You're supposedly a Lib Dem activist and yet you were advocating people voting for Tory in which to unseat Jowell. Your Lib Dem colleague was the more likely person to do so, if any such swing was going to happen (of course, as we know this proved to be fruitless anyway).
Yet, you constantly couldn't see it. It's no wonder that the Lib Dems did worst than expected when they're own activists in neighbouring constituencies didn't even advocate their own party being supported in an area where they did have a better (however marginal) chance than the Tories.
2005 election:
Lab Tessa Jowell 19,059 45.4 −9.5
Lib DemJonathan Mitchell 10,252 24.4 +9.2
Tory Kim Humphreys 9,200 21.9 −0.8
2010 election:
Lab Tessa Jowell 22,461 46.6 +1.2
Lib Dem Jonathan Mitchell 13,096 27.2 +2.7
Tory Olukemi Adegoke 10,684 22.2 +0.2
I must admit, Jowell's romp home with a bigger majority is a complete mystery to me too.
The Streatham tories did not stage a 'full blown revival'. Good fucking grief!
2005 election:
Lab Keith Hill 18,950 46.7 −10.2
Lib Dem Darren Sanders 11,484 28.3 +10.0
Tory James Sproule 7,238 17.8 −1.0
2010 election:
Lab Chuka Umunna 20,037 42.8 -4.2
Lib Dem Chris Nicholson 16,778 35.8 +6.3
Tory Rahoul Bhansali 8,578 18.3 +2.0
Again, the Lib Dems had the better chance to unseat Labour, not the Tories!
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
Fran, if you read CH1's posting history within the last week or so, he starts off semi-coherent and then just descends into utter bizarre pseudo-religious ranting.
stupid dogbot
Haughty and Superior
Then you'll deserve everything you get.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
The (2nd pref Tory) Liberal voters can't see what the problem with the possible ConDem government is all about. But surely that's a minority compared to the 'radical' Lib Dem voters no? Purely going on the Liberal voters I know two of them are natural Tories but voted for Clegg cause they thought Osborne is an idiot and Clegg and Vince have their budget costed correctly. But the five or six anti-racist, anti-homophobe Lib Dems who hate the Tories more than dislike Labour's "classism" have totally been drowned in the last two days by the guilt wave butchers talks about. One got very excited by the pro-pr march to LD HQ yesterday but other than that they're all keeping their heads down. I must be getting old and moderate cause I can't decide whether to rub their noses in it or flatter them by saying their leaders are betraying 'real liberals'.
big eejit
She looks like Alan Gilzean
If you have a Lib Dem MP you should email them now. They may be the most influential bunch of people in the country at the moment. Certainly an email to your MP at this moment could have much more effect than your vote will ever have.
"Dr MP, I voted for you because your party promised change. Please let Mr Clegg know that I and thousands like me will be very disappointed in your party if you do a grubby deal with the Tories at this point. Mr Clegg must stand up for PR now. He probably won't get a chance like this again. Thanks, Big Eejit"
"Dr MP, I voted for you because your party promised change. Please let Mr Clegg know that I and thousands like me will be very disappointed in your party if you do a grubby deal with the Tories at this point. Mr Clegg must stand up for PR now. He probably won't get a chance like this again. Thanks, Big Eejit"
Corax
Luke 5:16
I'm not that fussed tbh. What I see happening is Clegg reluctantly sticking by his 'biggest mandate' pledge, presenting the tories with a list of demands that they won't accept, and then being able to say 'well, I tried', and getting on the blower to Gordon. That's what I hope's happening anyway.
Either way, we'll have another GE within 12 months so I doubt any of it will matter much anyway.
Mind you, I wouldn't feel 'betrayed' or anything anyway. I'm not a lib dem 'supporter', I voted for them because I couldn't stomach voting for 'New' Labour with their record (Iraq etc), and I'll never vote tory. And some sort of PR would be good.
Either way, we'll have another GE within 12 months so I doubt any of it will matter much anyway.
Mind you, I wouldn't feel 'betrayed' or anything anyway. I'm not a lib dem 'supporter', I voted for them because I couldn't stomach voting for 'New' Labour with their record (Iraq etc), and I'll never vote tory. And some sort of PR would be good.
If you want to help them feel better, point out that 82% of them wasted their vote anyway, so it's completely irrelevant what way they voted.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
64% voted against the Tories. That's the majority.
It's also how PR-based parliaments throughout the world work. So, if you want PR, you'd better get used to coalitions of parties that didn't "win" under the terms you wish to cling to. You need to shed your party-based, and FPTP-based world-view.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
I admit to playing devil’s advocate by taking the most extreme figures available, in a throw away comment to illustrate a point.
And that isn’t a link to a ‘general’ page, it’s an index page to the results of every general election since 1802 – not that I went back that far! I was more interested in what happened since the last coalition government this country had back in 1945.
However, it gets complex going back beyond the 1955 election as the ‘Liberals’ had split and by-and-large the ‘National Liberals’ became the larger of the two until their MPs started to take the Tory whip and finally the ‘National Liberals’ were assimilated completely into the Tory party – leaving the ‘Liberals’ with about a 4% vote share during the 50s.
Fast forward to more recent times and they only started gaining over 20 seats and over a 20% vote share under New Labour – a hell of a lot of those extra votes are traditional Tory voters that felt let down by that party and voted LibDem because they would never vote Labour.
And the point is to illustrate that the LibDems are not a wing of the Labour party, it’s a broad church of diehard LibDems and a larger ‘soft’ vote, which includes a large number of voters that would prefer a deal with the Tories rather than Labour.
Their problem, as I’ve stated several times over the last few days, is that they are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, it doesn’t matter which way they jump it’s going to piss off somewhere between a majority and a very large minority of their voters.
They jumped in with Labour in the late 70s with the LibLab pact and suffered at the next election with a massive 25% drop in voting share. .
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
And 71% voted against Labour, which is a far larger majority, and therefore your agrument falls flat on it's face.
And having voted Green and being a supporter of PR, I don't need to shed any view.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Haven't read this thread but I think there's a bit of brinkmanship going on. Cameron isn't going to offer anything concrete, Clegg will then go over to Labour who are desperate and will give Clegg what he wants. Clegg did say if it was a hung parliament he go to whoever had the most seats first and talk with them. A committee on PR is a pathetic offer, plus most Lib-Dems would be happier with a coalition with labour rather than the Tories....Clegg has to keep his support base happy.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
You didn't read what I said. If an anti-Tory coalition comes about (setting aside for now its workability), then it isn't 'anti-democratic' if they can provide a majority over the Tories. That's what coalition and PR is about. Labour on their own can't do it, which is why they need to be part of a coalition. You're still thinking in FPTP terms.
(Not that I see any great difference between the 3 main parties. I'm more enjoying the spectacle).
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
Polly Tonybee on the news this morning said that psephologists had worked out that 2/3s of LibDem votes were anti Tory votes. (She gave no reference, and I have no idea how the figure was arrived at). If that is the case, then going into coalition with the Tories would seriously damage his party. That doesn't mean, of course, that he has to go into coalition with Labour. He could sit back and allow a minority Tory govt. However, that means he misses his chance to get things his party says it stands for.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
I think if Brown goes it will be easier for Clegg to go over to labour, but I don't think Brown will go unless he gets a shove down the stairs from his own party.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
Actually it would be undemocratic for the English nation as it would rely on MPs from the other nations to vote on legalisation that that doesn’t apply to their nations, something the Nats normally avoid, and which will open up one hell of a can of worms.
And I don’t think you can set aside the workability issue, a 2-party coalition (Tory/Lib) is going to be hard enough to pull off, but could produce a strong government with a very comfortable majority.
The alternative would only produce a tiny majority that is highly unlikely to hold together and would be a very weak government.
As I said before, if the LibDems had got their predicted 80+ seats and the Tories came in with only around 280 seats, things could have been very different.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
I think this notion that "we didn't vote for Brown as PM" (and its ancillary, "we didn't vote for Milliband") is specious: only people in Kirkaldy vote for Brown (and returned him with a vastly increased majority). We don't have presidential elections. It is up to the parties to select their leaders, and it is up to the Queen to give them the "legitimacy" of the Crown-in-Parliament.
However, the narrative does seem to be that Brown would need to go for a LibLab deal to be done. I doubt he'll leave with his fingernails intact.
editor
hiraethified
What's all this "your posters" bullshit? I don't own them, neither am I responsible for what opinions they hold.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
It was a UK election to the UK parliament, Westminster.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
And if that was transferred into seats in Parliament and the LibDems split, and 19 of their MPs took the Tory whip, it would give the Tories their majority and a fairly comfortable one assuming the DUP sided with them.
This is Clegg's problem the maths has left it very difficult for him.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
You keep saying that, yes. Thing is, we know.
_angel_
.
I would have thought they packed everything up on Thursday as a general rule?
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
Indeed. But there is no "moral" imperative to side with the Tories. None at all. All this is about is arithmetic, and what Clegg and his party eventually decide is in their interests.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
Yes, but that doesn't help with the West Lothian question - Labour got away with passing unpopular legalisation that only applied to England with votes from their Scottish MPs, because they had an overall majority.
The SNP, and I believe Plaid and most of the Ulster MPs, don’t normally vote on issues that don’t apply to them – if some sort of rainbow* coalition needs them to do so, I believe there would be a major backlash.
* As Rory Bremner said this morning – a rainbow doesn’t include brown.
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