Why the lib-dems are shit

[moon23]

You said the left should be attacking the Tories and not the Lib Dems. Presumably they should be attacking the Tories in order to defend and promote the interests of those about to get hurt by the proposed public sector cuts and standstills; these are the cuts and standstills which are being supported by Lib Dem lobby fodder and an enthusiastic Lib Dem leadership. My reading isn't the problem here. Your inability to think clearly and your willingnness to defend your party at all costs is.

Louis MacNeice

That's fine Louis.

My point was how you could jump from what I said to:

So it is the left's fault that people will get screwed and not the lib dems for providing lobby fodder...glad we've got that clear.

It doesn't follow on from what i'm saying!

 

[moon23]

And the way in which you are so willing to give cover to this onslaught against thde poor, in return for red boxes and ministers' Limoes is certainly cynical!
enjoy it whilst it lasts, btw - next time, you're toast

What the ministerial cars that the coalition helped scrap?

 

[butchersapron]

Sweet victory!

 

[Fedayn]

What the ministerial cars that the coalition helped scrap?

It makes the hundreds of thousands of job losses worth it alone.

 

[Lock&Light]

Sweet victory!

If you read Chris Mullin's diary you'll see that scrapping ministerial limos was no easy matter.

 

[Streathamite]

What the ministerial cars that the coalition helped scrap?

oh big deal! You knew perfectly well what I meant; in return for the trappings of Office, you've basically signed up to the scrapping of everything that could possibly be said to underscore your claim to be a party of privilege

 

[moon23]

No. But declaring publicly to support one policy AFTER formulating a plan to ditch said promise at the first opportunity IS cynical and IS selling out. Lets' not forget here that after beardy lentil munchers, the libdem's main body of support was the students -some of which wasted, in some cases, their first ever vote on your disgraceful pack of charlatans. What an introduction to representative democracy eh.

There is a differeance between ditching a policy when you are in power, and when you are in a coalition where the larger party disagrees with you. So some people within the party started speculating as to what policy areas you can negoiate on. Seeing as both Labour and the Tories wanted to raise tution fees there was no way the Lib Dems could hang on to that policy in government.

 

[butchersapron]

Let me get this right. The lib-dems thought they'd win the election outright - that's why they proposed and campaigned on this maximalist manifesto. Is that right?

 

[Lock&Light]

PR would result in permanent coalition government. This would mean all parties having to adapt their programmes after elections in order to form government.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

That's fine Louis.

My point was how you could jump from what I said to:

It doesn't follow on from what i'm saying!

But it does, because for you the Lib Dems are meant to be a brake on the worst excesses of the Tories; any attack on them (including ones from the left) is objectively strengthening the Tories hand to go further. Therefore when those to their left attack the Lib Dems they are in fact ultimately having a go at the poor; this is the sort of idiocy you get yourself into with your party loyalty.

Spend more time thinking and less typing.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Balbi]

There is a differeance between ditching a policy when you are in power, and when you are in a coalition where the larger party disagrees with you. So some people within the party started speculating as to what policy areas you can negoiate on. Seeing as both Labour and the Tories wanted to raise tution fees there was no way the Lib Dems could hang on to that policy in government.

So yeah, you're the Tories' gimp then. Or even worse, I guess massuh boss needs to hear sho' nuff from Nick now.

 

[butchersapron]

But it does, because for you the Lib Dems are meant to be a brake on the worst excesses of the Tories; any attack on them (including ones from the left) is objectively strengthening the Tories hand to go further. Therefore when those to their left attack the Lib Dems they are in fact ultimately having a go at the poor; this is the sort of idiocy you get yourself into with your party loyalty.

Spend more time thinking and less typing.

Louis MacNeice

Even articul8 dropped this line of attack when it's logic was pointed out to him in ref to the AV vote.

 

[moon23]

oh big deal! You knew perfectly well what I meant; in return for the trappings of Office, you've basically signed up to the scrapping of everything that could possibly be said to underscore your claim to be a party of privilege

In return for getting key areas of policy enacted, it's much better than what the Tories alone would have done.

£2 Billion invested in social care
25% cut in Trident Warheads
ID cards Scrapped
Rise in Capital Gains Tax
Stoped Tory plans to scrap inherritance tax
Won a referundum on electoral reform
£7Bn on Fairness premium for children
Rise in personal Tax allowance
150,000 homes for social housing
Green Investment Bank
Ending child detention for immigration purposes
Scrapping of ContactPoint
Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty
The right to sack MPs guilty of serious misconduct
Fixed term parliaments of five years

 

[butchersapron]

The right to sack MPs guilty of serious misconduct

Point to this.

 

[moon23]

PR would result in permanent coalition government. This would mean all parties having to adapt their programmes after elections in order to form government.

Yes, this is what happens on the continent all the time. Given that people don’t seem to like this and view it as breaking promises rather than compromising then perhaps no one wants coalition governments in this country. If that’s the case then we stick to FPTP and the normal cycle of Labour and Conservatives cyclical going back and forth in power.

 

[Lock&Light]

Point to this.

I don't think that's been passed yet, but isn't it in the government's programme?

 

[moon23]

Point to this.

Yes it would apply to any Lib Dems too

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, this is what happens on the continent all the time. Given that people don’t seem to like this and view it as breaking promises rather than compromising then perhaps no one wants coalition governments in this country. If that’s the case then we stick to FPTP and the normal cycle of Labour and Conservatives cyclical going back and forth in power.

With you on the outside. How transparent.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes it would apply to any Lib Dems too

Where is it enacted?

Where is any of it enacted?

 

[creak]

It’s also the case that all three parties were in denial about the size of the deficit, the electorate did not appreciate quite how bad some things were going to be.

I thought defecit spending was actually lower than expected; 09/10 totals were predicted to be ~£163bn but ended up being ~£156bn. It's still a lot of course, but that's not the point. We keep seeing ConDems coming out and whining about how the public finances were in a worse state than they realised before getting into office, and using that as a justification for cutting deeper and harder than promised and breaking various pledges made before the election- but as the figures show, this excuse is bollocks. You can't keep using it, because it isn't true.

 

[butchersapron]

.., Cable the soothsayer, the man who can see into the future, the man they based their economic manifesto on whines 'i didn't know'...

 

[moon23]

With you on the outside. How transparent.

So? If that's what people want then so be it. I'll go back to belonging to a small opposition party that helps campaigns locally and nationally. If people want to vote for someone else next time round then let them, it won't be any better under either of the other two main parties.

 

[Lock&Light]

Where is it enacted?

Where is any of it enacted?

Dutch governments always start off with a programme. Their abiltity to pass it through the parlimentary sessions decides how the people vote at the following elections. That's how it works.

 

[butchersapron]

So? If that's what people want then so be it. I'll go back to belonging to a small opposition party that helps campaigns locally and nationally. If people want to vote for someone else next time round then let them, it won't be any better under either of the other two main parties.

What a rousing battle hymn you provide for the lib-dems

This one's called TINA

If people want to vote for someone else next time round then let them, it won't be any better under either of the other two main parties.

 

[moon23]

I don't think that's been passed yet, but isn't it in the government's programme?

Yes it's in the Coalition agreement, and is part of the programme.

 

[frogwoman]

Yes I am dyslexic, sorry for the bad grammar allow me to re-phrase it.

Labour's current strategy is to attack the Lib Dems more than the Conservatives. They are trying to 'steal' votes from the party, rather than make the case against strongly against the Conservatives. What you see in election terms is a swing with left-leaning voters returning to Labour. This doesn't affect the overall left/right balance of the nation or address the fact that the Conservatives won the most votes at the GE. The propagate the myth that every Coalition policy that is not a Lib Dem policy is a broken promise.

That "vote-stealing" argument is pathetic. I had a green party prat make that argument to me the other night, how TUSC "stole" 2000 votes that could have gone to the green party. You keep going on about the labour party as though they are the cause of the nation's woes. The fact is that you support a party that is just as bad, and not only that, but you are defending literally everything it does. At least the LP members and supporters on here give the LP critical support rather than just blindly following everything. It's the same with the tory supporters. I don't like the tories but at least there are many different "types" of tory and they feel able to say they disagree with policies they don't agree with.

As I've said before, it seems to me that you're desperately justifying the fact to yourself that by joining the LD's, you've made a very very serious mistake and because of this, this has just turned to blind support of everything the party does, as in the more you know it is wrong, the more you are supporting it. Im not trying to be horrible because you're very polite on here. And it's something I recognise in myself too, so i can understand it, when you want to support something you want to not ask any questions and like everything about it, but that's not the way that politics or anything else should work.

I don't necessarily support everything the party i belong to says or does (im really not sure about the Sheridan stuff for example, ffs sort it out lol ) But at least I actually feel able to say so.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes it's in the Coalition agreement, and is part of the programme.

So it's not been enacted as per your claim. This really is your fist time in politics isn't it? Over the weekend there were reports of the lib-dems frantically rowing back on this due to fear of them being recalled by their doting electorate.

 

[moon23]

Let me get this right. The lib-dems thought they'd win the election outright - that's why they proposed and campaigned on this maximalist manifesto. Is that right?

Maybe the party should have laid out what it would try to negotiate on in the result of a Labour or Conservative Coalition, I’m not sure how that would affect the actual negotiation process. I guess it would make it very easy for the larger party to get more of their policy through by being able to force negotiations around what the election promises were.

The party, as all parties do campaign on what they would do if they were elected, they were not elected, we gotLess MPs then the last election.

 

[Lock&Light]

I don't necessarily support everything the party i belong to says or does (im really not sure about the Sheridan stuff for example, ffs sort it out lol ) But at least I actually feel able to say so.

I've supported Groen Links (Green Left) in Dutch elections ever since I moved here. They are a coalition of the Progressive Party, Evangelical Party, Communist Party and the Pacifist Socialist Party (the one I voted for before the parties amalgamated). However they have started preliminary talks about a fusion with the Dutch Labour Party and that is something I most certaily won't agree with.

 

[moon23]

What a rousing battle hymn you provide for the lib-dems

This one's called TINA

Just saying it's the British public who decide, I think the Lib Dems are doing a good job and getting a good number of polices enacted for the size of the party. I think there is far less of a fanfare being made over the positive things and far more noise being made by the Unions, Labour and the press over the negative things.

For instance the NUS' plans to unseat Lib Dem MPs, I can't remember them launching anything like this when Labour broke promises and introduced tution fees in the first time.