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Why are lots of people annoyed at Nick Clegg today?

the button said:
It's hardly Mystic Meg territory to surmise that people who voted LibDem off the back of Cleggmania would vote differently if there was another election soon.
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Probably about half-half. You underestimate how much a lot of people wanted Brown out. So that would have given the Tories a majority with absolutely no chance of electoral reform. Is that what you wanted?
 
sleaterkinney said:
Left wing socially as opposed to economically perhaps?
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On some social things they certainly do appear more progressive - which is why I think they attract the student support* and so on. I believe there is a layer of people who vote based on social policy rather than economic policy, for various reasons. However, their immigration policy, which is rooted in both economics and social policy, is anything but progressive or left wing. You could argue that where the 'real' politics happens is in terms of the economy, public spending, class-based policies. In this sense, they are not left wing.



*I'm weary of the phrase 'student support' - I know plenty of right wing students (for shame), and it suggests students can't think, or are some homogeneous mass. But it's a phrase that is being used commonly, and I'm too lazy to pick a new one.
 
It's not like they would just say "yeah you know what? fuck PR". If Clegg goes in with the Tories there'll be some sort of fudge and promise of consideration etc later on, which will let people who are so inclined say "look he hasn't sold out".

You wouldn't be hearing all these hints about a Lib-Con coalition, from the Lib Dems, without Clegg having quite carefully sounded out MPs and the party to see what they would take - certainly given how completely opposed the Tories seem to be to PR at all.
 
Some updates from the BBC:

1545: Nick Clegg appears to huge cheers from pro-voting reform demonstrators.
1551: Nick Clegg accepts the petition calling for electoral change, said to have 20,000 signatures, and urges campaigners to carry their message to every street in the country.

OK so if taken at face value they are trying to put pressure on the Tories to get more electoral form than is currently on the table? Not sure what odds I give this strategy of working, nor how long they will hold out for this.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
It's not like they would just say "yeah you know what? fuck PR". If Clegg goes in with the Tories there'll be some sort of fudge and promise of consideration etc later on, which will let people who are so inclined say "look he hasn't sold out".

You wouldn't be hearing all these hints about a Lib-Con coalition, from the Lib Dems, without Clegg having quite carefully sounded out MPs and the party to see what they would take - certainly given how completely opposed the Tories seem to be to PR at all.
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Completely by-the-by, but my favourite part of Dimbleby's delirium yesterday morning was when he kept saying 'muddle and fudge, muddle and fudge, muddle and fudge', like he'd gotten trapped in a Dollis Hill loop :D
 
doddles said:
Probably about half-half. You underestimate how much a lot of people wanted Brown out. So that would have given the Tories a majority with absolutely no chance of electoral reform. Is that what you wanted?
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The post you responded to wasn't about what I want, it's about the likely impact of another general election on LibDem support. Given the results of this election, it's easy to see how the LibDem vote will get squeezed from a number of directions: -

* people who want Brown out voting Tory rather than LibDem (as you point out)
* ex-Labour voters returning to the fold because they don't want a Tory government
* the "Cleggmania" levy of people who actually thought there might be a LibDem government realising this is never going to happen under FPTP
* people who voted tactically for LibDems at constituency level because they didn't like their sitting MP
* lefty/liberal types for whom the prospect of LibDems doing deals with the Tories is somehow news being scared off
* and so on.
 
the button said:
The post you responded to wasn't about what I want, it's about the likely impact of another general election on LibDem support. Given the results of this election, it's easy to see how the LibDem vote will get squeezed from a number of directions:
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I agree that if the LibDems don't manage to get voting reform, then they're toast for the reasons you give. But if they do, then the whole game changes, and for me that was worth the risk voting for them (which wasn't much of a risk given that Labour were never going to win anyway).
 
The 'unlock democracy' protesters have now been shouting 'votes not moats' at the Tory party HQ.
 
Vintage Paw said:
On some social things they certainly do appear more progressive - which is why I think they attract the student support* and so on. I believe there is a layer of people who vote based on social policy rather than economic policy, for various reasons. However, their immigration policy, which is rooted in both economics and social policy, is anything but progressive or left wing. You could argue that where the 'real' politics happens is in terms of the economy, public spending, class-based policies. In this sense, they are not left wing.
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I don't think their immigration policy is a social one, it's rooted in economics. As far as their economics policies go then they are right wing, but so is every other major political party nowadays - maybe the left right axis has moved to the right over these past decades in that sense.
 
The only people PR will change the game for is the lib-dems and the dominant interests they represent. The electoral system is not the main problem - the main problem is that society is run in the interests of a group of interlocking elites whose power is mainly in the economic sphere but whose also use a system of political legitimation to defend or extend their interests. This system of political legitimation stems from that economic dominance, it's a secondary feature. Changing it won't change the system - it'll just make the way legitimation occurs slightly different. What will happen under PR is that those dominant interests will adapt to the new system and make it its own as much as FPTP ever was - look at other countries with PR, the same interests dominant totally there, they're just elected differently. Labour, the tories and the lib-dems will sit on PR and leave zero room for anything else. If you really want democracy you should be calling for economic democracy not PR.
 
butchersapron said:
The only people PR will change the game for is the lib-dems and the dominant interests they represent. The electoral system is not the main problem - the main problem is that society is run in the interests of a group of interlocking elites whose power is mainly in the economic sphere but whose also use a system of political legitimation to defend or extend their interests. This system of political legitimation stems from that economic dominance, it's a secondary feature. Changing it won't change the system - it'll just make the way legitimation occurs slightly different. What will happen under PR is that those dominant interests will adapt to the new system and make it its own as much as FPTP ever was - look at other countries with PR, the same interests dominant totally there, they're just elected differently. Labour, the tories and the lib-dems will sit on PR and leave zero room for anything else. If you really want democracy you should be calling for economic democracy not PR.
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Do you not think it will enable smaller parties to have more of a say if they get into coalition governments?. Is it not a better system than the one we have currently?
 
I guess PR has its pros and cons. I am quite undecided about it.

and quite, scifisam. thanks. and it's not just me who says that vintage paw, it is people who work within the race equality field. i wouldn't call anything about the LDs left wing,, but i would not criticise their immigration policy in the context of the others. the LDs are one of tha main political parties. and yes, the regional thing is not a terrible idea imo.

people can be very unrealistic at times. please do not forget that we are talking about mainstream politics.
 
cesare said:
Why is 'as left wing as we've got' a good reason for voting them in?
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Well, the alternatives are voting for really small parties that have even less chance of any power, voting for more right-wing parties, or not voting. I can understand why people would go for the former and latter, but personally I voted for the least-bad party that had a chance of getting in - and there weren't any socialist candidates or anything like that standing here anyway. (There was no way I was going to vote for Respect).
 
sleaterkinney said:
Do you not think it will enable smaller parties to have more of a say if they get into coalition governments?. Is it not a better system than the one we have currently?
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Has it meant that elsewhere? No, it's meant smaller parties being swallowed up by the larger ones and becoming more right wing, or used by the right wing to offer left-wing cover to no-liberal attacks. And the electoral system still remains secondary.
 
sleaterkinney said:
I don't think their immigration policy is a social one, it's rooted in economics. As far as their economics policies go then they are right wing, but so is every other major political party nowadays - maybe the left right axis has moved to the right over these past decades in that sense.
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I meant social in that for a lot of people it's a moral* issue as well as an economic one. In that, for the voter, it doesn't just come down to the availability of jobs or the distribution of benefits, although that's clearly the language of justification for the right-wing opposition to immigration. It's also a socially-based issue (for the voters). For some who are on the right it's mixed in with feelings of fear at seeing diversity (not necessarily racist fear, but an unknowable fear nonetheless), and for those on the left it's mixed with the liberal belief in diversity.


*that's not the right word either.
 
butchersapron said:
The only people PR will change the game for is the lib-dems and the dominant interests they represent. The electoral system is not the main problem - the main problem is that society is run in the interests of a group of interlocking elites whose power is mainly in the economic sphere but whose also use a system of political legitimation to defend or extend their interests. This system of political legitimation stems from that economic dominance, it's a secondary feature. Changing it won't change the system - it'll just make the way legitimation occurs slightly different. What will happen under PR is that those dominant interests will adapt to the new system and make it its own as much as FPTP ever was - look at other countries with PR, the same interests dominant totally there, they're just elected differently. Labour, the tories and the lib-dems will sit on PR and leave zero room for anything else. If you really want democracy you should be calling for economic democracy not PR.
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Whilst I agree I feel that it points to a suppressing of any real education about politics in the system and certainly no attempt to produce analytical thinking.
This is possibly why it is so difficult to achieve any change
 
scifisam said:
Really? :confused: More right-wing than the Tories and Labour? How on Earth do you figure that?
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I realised after I posted that it was slightly ambiguous. I mean, as right-wing as the other parties. Not more right-wing than the Tories and Labour.

I find the regional work permit thing a terrible idea. Some of it is spun in a 'progressive' way, but when you think about the implications of restricting groups of workers to one particular area, all that will happen is more division - pockets of angry local people who see out of work furriners everywhere, more justification for the line that 'they come over here and take all our jobs', and a new even more disenfranchised layer of immigrants who can't get work because they aren't allowed to move around to find it.
 
Vintage Paw said:
I realised after I posted that it was slightly ambiguous. I mean, as right-wing as the other parties. Not more right-wing than the Tories and Labour.
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Oh, phew. I disagree, but at least I can understand where you're coming from - for a moment there it looked like you'd gone insane. :D

I don't know enough their immigration policy to comment on it properly - I've read more about other policies of theirs.
 
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