Apparently Nick Clegg and David Cameron are to hold a joint event, dubbed "Rose Garden 2", to show that the collation (oops, "coalition" - see comment) partners are determined to stick together, united by the "glue" of taking tough decisions to rescue the economy.
This is about the last thing Liberal Democrats need, and one wonders what on earth Nick Clegg and his advisers are thinking about. The "tough decisions" policy, in other words public expenditure cuts, has been opposed by we so called "Social Liberals" from the beginning and, after two years the failure of the austerity approach which we predicted is now amply evident, as we endure the "double dip" recession and unemployment is now predicted to reach 3 million by the end of the year. Those who claim that the policy is on course for success are as Panglossian as the famous Comical Ali, the Iraqi Minister of Information, who resolutely proclaimed massive glorious Iraqi victories against a background of American gunfire as they approached the gates of Baghdad.
After Thursday's humiliating but not unexpected defeats, Clegg needs to distance us as far as possible from the destructive Tory economic policy, and repeat and repeat and repeat that they have 306 MPs and we have only 57. So we can't stop them from implementing their principal ideology, all we can do is ameliorate it and introduce some of our own priorities such as the pupil premium, raising of the income tax threshold, and long-overdue constitutional.reform
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"Collation": I like it. Like revenge, i guess it's best served cold.
ReplyDeleteOops, but I'll leave it in, or others will not understand the point of your comment.
ReplyDeleteSo Cameron and Osborne now 'get it'. A pity it is so late. \but don't we all 'strive'? It is very convenient for the Tories to blame the Lib Dems for their own mistakes and at the same time rely on them to stay in 'power'.
ReplyDeleteAS for Osborne he shows his mediocrity by admitting only to a failure to 'spin' effectively.
I think the Cons have definitely lost the plot and Cleggover would be much more suited to supporting a Labour coalition.
Certainly the majority, probably overwhelming, of Liberal Democrat activists would have preferred, and perhaps always envisaged, a left of centre coalition with Labour, plus probably the Greens and maybe the Nationalists. However, as Simon Hughes aptly put it: "We had to play the cards the electorate dealt."
ReplyDeleteThe facts are that, after the 2010 election:
a) Although Gordon Brown was keen, other key figures in the Labour Party were not, and Neanderthals such as Jack Straw and David Blunkett were particularly anti.
b) Even if they had been willing, the parliamentary arithmetic, even with the support of all the Nationalists plus the one Green, would have given that coalition a majority of only one. Since on average four MPs die each year such a coalition would have been fighting for its life at every by-election.
The only alternative would have been a minority Conservative government, which would probably have called an election in the autumn and won a majority. Therefore such "gains" as the Liberal Democrats have achieved would not have happened.
As one (socialist, I think) friend has put it, "the Liberal Democrats committed voluntary euthanasia for the sake of the country."
But I'm an optimist - Liberals, Liberal Democrats, and Bradford City supporters have to be - and were not dead yet.