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Why the lib-dems are shit

brogdale said:
Yesterday's men....what does beaker [(tory leader) Osborne's man] want?
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I'd imagine, quietly, he will be hatching plans to throw the kitchen sink at retaining his seat over the next year. Not much point in being seen as the "leader in waiting" if you have no seat. Even if he dismisses Oakshott's poll publically, privately it will be a massive concern.

If he is clever he will "rise above" the petty squabbling. If the Lib Dems are to implode best he tries to put a distance between himself and the ferrets in a sack.
 
killer b said:
What purpose does Hodges serve now? Surely no-one takes him seriously?
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Right-wingers can use his columns to be like 'wow! even this loony left-winger/trade unionist/Labour writer thinks this, that's just how common sense my preconceived prejudies are!'
 
But he gets it wrong consistently. He's probably the best weathervane the Labour Party have in that sense, although not in the way he'd like. Surely that has an impact on the value of his opinion, even to a R/W paper?
 
JTG said:
Aren't national polls done with around 1000? So for a single constituency that's easily enough
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I haven't done stats for a while but I don't think it quite works like that. Sampling accuracy is a LOT more sensitive to changes in sample size than it is to overall population.

There's plenty of calculators you can use - putting the numbers in suggests that given the sample size there's a reasonable degree of potential variance so in a sense they're right to say it's small. It's vanishingly unlikely to be as wrong as they'd like though.
 
steeplejack said:
My reading is this; Clegg may well be privately seething at Cable's disloyalty, but has already worked out that losing Cable at such a sensitive time will be nuclear, therefore he has no choice but to wear the humilation and bluff it out with the press.
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Aye, I think that's right. He must know that if he get's rid of Cable he's going to start an open war.
 
Group of party big wigs have a letter in the times saying clegg leadership should be put to party vote. Time running out, and it looks life he may escape the election humiliation.
 
the real debate isn't about Clegg, tho. It's about whether to stay in the coalition. But they can't be seen to be having that argument, so they have to frame it around Clegg instead.

There is a logic in that. Breaking the coalition now would give themselves a chance to reposition themselves as 'remembering their roots,' and going someway to define a space between them and the tories. The tories wouldn't mind as they could then swing more right-wing, move onto UKIP ground, get a couple more of those vital poll points back.

Problem is, it might lead to a couple more libscum MP's saved, but it would hand the tories a better chance of winning an outright majority.
 
belboid said:
the real debate isn't about Clegg, tho. It's about whether to stay in the coalition. But they can't be seen to be having that argument, so they have to frame it around Clegg instead.

There is a logic in that. Breaking the coalition now would give themselves a chance to reposition themselves as 'remembering their roots,' and going someway to define a space between them and the tories. The tories wouldn't mind as they could then swing more right-wing, move onto UKIP ground, get a couple more of those vital poll points back.

Problem is, it might lead to a couple more libscum MP's saved, but it would hand the tories a better chance of winning an outright majority.
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I agree that's the strategy they're considering -not sure it would really help the Tories though, would leave them more exposed for the last year of the Parliament.
 
SpackleFrog said:
I agree that's the strategy they're considering -not sure it would really help the Tories though, would leave them more exposed for the last year of the Parliament.
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what have they got left to push through tho? there's pretty much nothing in the pipeline, what have we felt the need to start a campaign about in the last couple of months? nothing - because they have no plans beyond more general austerity, a couple more cuts here, a bribe there. it's almost as if they were plannig for this.

if the libs break away, the tories can propose some measures that will be rejected, but will show UKIP voters that this is what they'd be doing if it weren't for those pesky kids. Which would also let the kids say 'hey, look how bad they'd have been if it weren't for us'

Obviously there's a big problem with the libs' argument, but they might hope to get away with it. Cable could go 'we've learnt our lesson' - it could be good enough to save a couple of seats. especially his
 
belboid said:
what have they got left to push through tho? there's pretty much nothing in the pipeline, what have we felt the need to start a campaign about in the last couple of months? nothing - because they have no plans beyond more general austerity, a couple more cuts here, a bribe there. it's almost as if they were plannig for this.

if the libs break away, the tories can propose some measures that will be rejected, but will show UKIP voters that this is what they'd be doing if it weren't for those pesky kids. Which would also let the kids say 'hey, look how bad they'd have been if it weren't for us'

Obviously there's a big problem with the libs' argument, but they might hope to get away with it. Cable could go 'we've learnt our lesson' - it could be good enough to save a couple of seats. especially his
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Well yeah, but then what you mean is they want to posture to the Right, and they're already free to do that aren't they?
 
SpackleFrog said:
Well yeah, but then what you mean is they want to posture to the Right, and they're already free to do that aren't they?
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yeah, but it just doesn't ring true when they are putting forward legislation that doesn't match that right tone. and one of the things the UKIP success shows is that 'ringing true' really matters. Without actually putting forward legislation, their words are just posturing. Putting forward actual Bills - even if they're defeated - has a much better resonance.
 
belboid said:
what have they got left to push through tho? there's pretty much nothing in the pipeline, what have we felt the need to start a campaign about in the last couple of months? nothing - because they have no plans beyond more general austerity, a couple more cuts here, a bribe there. it's almost as if they were plannig for this.

if the libs break away, the tories can propose some measures that will be rejected, but will show UKIP voters that this is what they'd be doing if it weren't for those pesky kids. Which would also let the kids say 'hey, look how bad they'd have been if it weren't for us'

Obviously there's a big problem with the libs' argument, but they might hope to get away with it. Cable could go 'we've learnt our lesson' - it could be good enough to save a couple of seats. especially his
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Actually to be fair I reckon there's a decent chance it would work - well enough to keep 40-45 seats anyway, if its done well. Cable is being touted but I think it would be more effective if they went for Tim Farron. He's the only Lib Dem with a profile who has criticised the coalition a bit and he hasn't taken a position in the cabinet. Danny Alexander could easily jump to the Tories, Cable is a bit too old to provide a long term leadership figure to "rebuild" around and nobody can really remember who anyone else is.
 
belboid said:
yeah, but it just doesn't ring true when they are putting forward legislation that doesn't match that right tone. and one of the things the UKIP success shows is that 'ringing true' really matters. Without actually putting forward legislation, their words are just posturing. Putting forward actual Bills - even if they're defeated - has a much better resonance.
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Surely we're talking margins here though? They can easily leak a load of things they wanted to do but LD's blocked.
 
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