Why the lib-dems are shit

[frogwoman]

OK sorry everyone, I lied, I am a tory but it's a great relief not to have to hide any longer

 

[the button]

OK sorry everyone, I lied, I am a tory but it's a great relief not to have to hide any longer

There's your Saturday afternoon sorted -- selling the Daily Mail in your town centre next to a crappy pastetable with a petition to abolish the national minimum wage.

 

[frogwoman]

Swappie Tories lol. Do they stand around getting passers-by to sign petitions about house prices and stuff?

"If you sign this petition then you will get a 20% return on your investments - and while you are at, it , do you want to buy a copy of our paper, The Daily Telegraph - it's only £2.50"

 

[frogwoman]

There's your Saturday afternoon sorted -- selling the Daily Mail in your town centre next to a crappy pastetable with a petition to abolish the national minimum wage.

 

[the button]

Bet you never realised bringing back the birch was a transitional demand, eh?

 

[frogwoman]

I guess sacrifices have to be made to one step on the way to full Toryism, comrade.

 

[killer b]

Swappie Tories lol. Do they stand around getting passers-by to sign petitions about house prices and stuff?

"If you sign this petition then you will get a 20% return on your investments - and while you are at, it , do you want to buy a copy of our paper, The Daily Telegraph - it's only £2.50"

young tories seem to be using methods previously the preserve of the left - check out this photo a swappie mate of mine posted from manc uni.

it made me lol.

one of the comment on the pic did too:

SWP caught a few of the tories sitting on the union steps with the marker pen in their hand so they shouted at them until they went away.

one of the tories said 'you're making me feel intimidated'.

a battle both were doomed to lose, i fear...

 

[frogwoman]

Hehehehe that's hilarious "TWAT!"

 

[frogwoman]

Bet you never realised bringing back the birch was a transitional demand, eh?

A transitional demand to what? Death?

 

[the button]

A transitional demand to what? Death?

The dictatorship of death, comrade. Or -- if things go a bit tits up -- a deformed worker's death where we can raise the banner of political revolution.

 

[frogwoman]

Ah, I see, comrade. Mind you if we're Tories it wouldn't be a deformed workers' anything would it , because everyone would be unemployed ...

 

[the button]

Ah, I see, comrade. Mind you if we're Tories it wouldn't be a deformed workers' anything would it , because everyone would be unemployed ...

True. But after 25 years in & around leftwing politics, I still can't spell that word for posh people that begins with 'bour.'

 

[frogwoman]

A new word for a new generation, comrade

 

[Belushi]

True. But after 25 years in & around leftwing politics, I still can't spell that word for posh people that begins with 'bour.'

barbour?

 

[killer b]

bouring.

 

[binka]

simon hughes looking very uncomfortable on newsnight

 

[Kaye]

This thread has become a painful read. However, based on it, I'm now going going to vote No. In particular because those in favour of a Yes only have the argument "well look who you're supporting" rather than arguing about the issue. And the 8 fella was particularly bad for that.

Can someone show me something that illustrates how the coalition is worse because of the Lib Dems involvement. IE the exact opposite of what they're claiming?

 

[articul8]

That is at least arguable, but not critical to the case for a YES vote. Kaye - You have plenty of time to reconsider you're voting intentions . I don't blame you for not having read the entire thread but to recapitulate - Positive reasons to vote YES include:
1) IT WOULD MAKE IT LESS DIFFICULT TO KICK OUT BOTH COALITION PARTNERS AT THE NEXT ELECTION!!!!!!!
2) No voters are left in the position of having to vote for their preferred party and see it wasted, OR having to vote tactically for a party you don't really support to see your vote count.
3) It would allow us to see the real extent of support for left and/or Green candidates currently masked by tactical voting. It would confront us with the real extent (however limited) of this support and allow left or green candidates to identify local concentrations of support for winning council seats.
4) The switch to preferential voting makes STV (ie. PR) for local government a very easy step to take - to make consistent local elections England and Wales with Scotland and N. Ireland (already use STV).

 

[frogwoman]

Can't believe the utterly sophistical logic being argued here

1) The Lib Dems are shit (true)
2) The LDs are backing AV (also true)
3) People who hate the LDs would benefit if AV vote was lost (NOT FUCKING TRUE!)

How would the lib dems not benefit if the AV vote was won?

And no of course it won't make parliament into a vehicle of workers democracy - that's not my claim.

Nobody is saying it would

But does it make it more or less viable for a left alternative to emerge? My bet is that it makes it more likely in the longer term - partly because it could well lead to STV for local government but mostly as Labour won't hold a revolver to smaller parties or independent candidates and tell them not to split the vote. Those who want to stick with FPTP need to outline a strategy for building a credible left alternative under that system, when it has helped to throttle all such attempts for decades.

Actually, Labour will also be able to better disaggregate its support which currently appears in the LD figures due to tactical voting. It will help to stop the LDs posing as "the only ones who can win here" against the Tories - like they don't share a lot in common.

I take your point, but the labour developed under a far worse version of FTPF than we have today. The conditions were completely different but that's not to say it couldn't happen again.

And nobody has said why we should take this pathetic tory/lib dem imitation of PR rather than PR itself.

 

[articul8]

How would the lib dems not benefit if the AV vote was won?

Well realistically their vote share is going to drop significantly at the next election. So they are unlikely to make many gains under whichever system. It is true AV might make it harder for them to get wiped out. But - and this is the bit we have to accept - there are areas in the country (large swathes of the South of England) where eliminating the LDs makes it much easier for the Tories to pick up seats and concentrate their fire on picking up Labour seats. ie. it would hand a majority to Cameron. AV would mean not only that some of the seats would go to the LDs, but also that the two coalition parties would be fighting each other in many more areas. (unless of course there's an electoral pact between the two of them but that's a whole other ballgame).

Why do you say that the FPTP system was "far worse" at the turn of the last century? I don't see this. Particularly now that parties have identified the demographics of swing voters and the number of seats that might change hands is so low. Around a fifth of the seats have been held by the same party since 1945! I don't say it is impossible for a new party to emerge under FPTP - but it would take some almighty social cataclysm for this to happen on a really significant scale rather than in a few isolated local cases. is it a coincidence that Britian - with its FPTP system - failed to see a really mass CP emerge - in contrast to France, Italy, etc.

I don't say that AV is the best system we could change to. But it's the only one on the table, and realistically all that could have been got out of the Tories. So we should grab it and demand more. That's another reason the Tories are so hostile.

 

[Random]

is it a coincidence that Britian - with its FPTP system - failed to see a really mass CP emerge - in contrast to France, Italy, etc.

I think you're wrong to see FPTP as an important causal factor in limiting CP growth - it didn't stop the Indian communist parties from becoming massivle, did it? I think the key difference between the UK and Itlay and France was that UK communism never really became a mass movement - it invovled tens of thousands rather than millions.

Likewise you're wrong to think that a change in the voting system will cause left parties to rise to the fore. They're hardly champing at the bit in their millions, held back only by a rigged electoral system, are they? With Pr we would see a tricke of a few more greens in parliament, maybe scargill or some other lefty celebrity as well, and that's it - because that's the situation at the grassroots as well.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Is it a coincidence that Britian - with its FPTP system - failed to see a really mass CP emerge - in contrast to France, Italy, etc.

Do you really think that PR would have seen the emergence of a mass CP in the UK (which is the implication of the above)? Couldn't there, for example, be rather more important factors in the polical, trade union, and religous histories of the UK working class, which differentiate them from France and Italy, than parliamentary balloting arrangements?

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

There's a really damaging logic at work here - don't attack the lib-dems, don't seek to damage the lib-dems because the result might weaken their position in the coalition. I don't see why that could be applied to the tories too but those putting forward this logic don't seem to mind that, presumably because they're doing it. In fact, why attack the coalition at all - a weakened coalition might force both parties to cling to each other even tighter.

That really is an abandonment of politics and a total failure of nerve - an even weaker version of the sort of auto-laburism. It essentially means wait until the next general election (whilst adding in pious guff about building up an extra-parliamentary opposition - inside parliament of course! ) and subsumes real life politics to parliamentary arithmetic. How the hell can we build up something against all this crap without attacking it and if we attack it we have to aim to weaken it. There's no sensible political logic in denying this.

 

[butchersapron]

Do you really think that PR would have seen the emergence of a mass CP in the UK (which is the implication of the above)? Couldn't there, for example, be rather more important factors in the polical, trade union, and religous histories of the UK working class, which differentiate them from France and Italy, than parliamentary balloting arrangements?

Louis MacNeice

It does show the cart-before-the-horse approach taken by this argument though. That politics determines the system rather than the system determining (crudely put) politics. Some very basic foundational arguments are either being forgotten here or deliberately being thrown overboard.

 

[frogwoman]

exactly

 

[frogwoman]

But - and this is the bit we have to accept - there are areas in the country (large swathes of the South of England) where eliminating the LDs makes it much easier for the Tories to pick up seats and concentrate their fire on picking up Labour seats. ie. it would hand a majority to Cameron.

Huh ?? this is a bit i don't get , they already have a majority!! the lib dems and tories are basically two different types of tory, you can't hold a piece of paper betwen them. |It seems to me that you want labour back in power (which is fair enough if that's what you think) and think that this approach will do it - but even the labour party are opposing it on the basis that it's tied a boundary changing bill iirc

how do you think that a tory government would be worse than what this govt is doing? for that matter how do you think a majority lib dem govt would be better?

 

[Santino]

A great result at the next election would be a Lib-Tory pact with both renegade Tories and Liberals standing, resulting in a three-way split.

 

[stethoscope]

It might give birth to some whole new splinter parties - "Liberal Left Party", "The One Nation Conservative Party"

(A re-appearance of the "Literal Democrats"? )

 

[Santino]

The Conversative Party

 

[stethoscope]

The Conversative Party

http://www.conversatives.com/