Lib Dems & Tories... Can they work together?

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

• Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket.
• A fair chance for every child.
• A fair future, creating jobs by making Britain greener.
• A fair deal for you from politicians.

http://www.libdems.org.uk/our_manifesto_4_key_policies.aspx

seems a bit vague. it says they spell out the policies in their manifesto but it's not at all clear which bits they mean. 10 k tax free I presume but what about the fair deal from politicians. does that mean pr?

ninky_2

Emy1501 wrote: »

Are the public really that bothered about a new voting system? One survey I read suggested that 74% thought it was one of the less important issues and more people wanted kept it as it was rather than have it changed changed.

i think that a lot of people will see how important this is now that the results are out and they show how unfair fptp is. add to that the fraud that has gone on and how open to abuse voter registration is and people being turned away after queuing to vote for over an hour.

it all needs change. even down to the seating system in the house of commons.

chris_m

Emy1501 wrote: »

The markets showed yesterday what they thought of a Lib/Lab pact when GB came out saying he was looking to form a government with the Lib Dems. Therefore Clegg will have difficulty saying that going with Labour was in the national interest especially when in a few months the public find out that Brown was economical with the truth over the cuts there will have to be.

If this "tweet" on the BBC election site is true, it certainly won't help;

1. BREAKING NEWSLiberal Democrat sources have told the BBC's Jon Soppel that Gordon Brown delivered a diatribe laced with threats when he spoke to Nick Clegg last night by phone. It was in sharp contrast to the respectful and constructive talk between David Cameron and Mr Clegg, they added.

Sir_Humphrey

Martha Kearnley of the BBC tweeted just before the polls closed that senior Tories thought they had an overall majority. That was believable but untrue.

I would take anything that any party says over the next few days with a huge pinch of salt.

For the record, what Brown said was that he was happy for Clegg to talk to Cameron. Even Simon Heffer of the Torygraph thinks that Brown is being proper about this.

chris_m

The BEEB is now saying that other LD sources have told them the call was perfectly amicable - sound like some sabre-rattling going on.

Emy1501

ninky wrote: »

i think that a lot of people will see how important this is now that the results are out and they show how unfair fptp is. add to that the fraud that has gone on and how open to abuse voter registration is and people being turned away after queuing to vote for over an hour.

it all needs change. even down to the seating system in the house of commons.

Surely people already knew this though? The news channels constantly showed the fact that when the Lib/Dems were at about 30% they would only get just over 10 seats and that Labour could have the most seats even with the lowest percentage of the 3 main parties. The Lib Dems also spoke mostly about cleaning up Westminster and this was mainly what they about. They got more coverage than they have ever had and still only increased their vote by 1%.

For me the sign is that people are not really bothered about AV or PR and the pressing matter is the economy and therefore thats what they should be trying to sort out. The country as a whole will not look well on them if they found out that they failed to get an agreement with the Tories because of no agreement on PR.

PhylPho

Emy1501 wrote: »

The country as a whole will not look well on them if they found out that they failed to get an agreement with the Tories because of no agreement on PR.

Well, I can't speak for the whole country, but as one who voted LibDem this time in expectation of a hung Parliament, I did so in hope that Britain would be rid of New Labour and Gordon Brown. So far, it seems, so good, because despite the typical daft posturing of a certain Ben Bradshaw, Labour lost the election and the Tories won.

However, as that LibDem voter, I'd very rapidly tear up that allegiance were it to be the case that a Tory / LibDem alliance now foundered upon a LibDem failure to recognise priorities, i.e.: it's the economy, stupid. Not electoral reform.

A country that finishes up in a worse state than Greece can have all the proportional representation it wants but when we're staggering around the smoking ruins, satisfaction with having junked First Past The Post ain't going to compensate for the knowledge that we've just junked the country.

bristol_pilot

If the LibDems put party interests before the national interest and insist on PR, there can be no deal with the Tories. The LibDems will then probably be in the position of being the party who came third, proping up a failed PM who has never been elected either as PM or as party leader and whose party lost the election good and proper. The markets will then have no confidence that the country will deal with it's debt leading to economic meltdown Greek-style. There will be riots in the streets within a year. No pressure, Nick.

bristol_pilot

Not everyone thinks that PR is 'fair' - it delivers the greatest amount of power to the party that gets the fewest votes. And the prospect of the BNP getting into parliament, btw.

Entertainer

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

There are alot of stupid posts in this thread however this one makes a good point.

I have said prior to the election, as a Lib Dem, that we should let the largest party govern and sit on our hands for the Queens Speech and the budget.

I do not see why we should join with the Tories even though we have alot of common ground on areas of civil liberties and the surveillance state. We certainly cannot join with Labour as they are too illiberal and, remember, we started off as liberals.

So we go through the motions. Let Cameron form a minority government and hope it is massively unpopular. The risk is that the Tories form a minority government and do relatively well going to the country again in the next 18 months and seal a mandate.

For Clegg and the Lib Dems the long game has to be to replace Labour as the force of the centre left. Last night made that dream unlikely.

The big danger for you Liberals is that this could be as good as it gets. You've had the Iraq War and now Cleggmania (against the backdrop of the other centre left party being very unpopular) and yet still you haven't made the breakthrough. In fact you went backwards, incredibly (I still haven't been told by the experts how this happened given that the polls had you much higher than that on the eve of the election.)

Of course there are risks in going in with Brown or forcing him to resign and working with a new Labour leader who hasn't even been voted in by the people. You will need the support of the nationalists whose price will be a nice big bribe- English voters are just sooo going to love getting their wallets out to pay for your largesse to their Celtic cousins. However, you will get a referendum on PR in six months and an actual chance to change the system (referendums for constitutional change are good- you only have to win them once.) You could think of it as a free go. Although you might lose- the people might not like you gerrymandering democracy like that.

Decisions, decisions.:D