lib are talking to labour please tell me it's not so

Entertainer

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Possibly why the Lib dems want to change the way our democracy works ?? This sort of thing is just getting silly.

I reckon the Lib dems are playing long. Stay long enough to get the AV/PR thing through and then wipe the Tories off the face of the earth, forever.

What's to lose really ? Then go to another general election.

As for the SNP/PC etc. Well, the SNP have been leading a minority goverment in Scotland for the last 3 years. It hasn't been the end of the world as we know it. They know 'just a bit' about what having to work with other parties means. The Lib dems have helped pass quite a few laws/legistation of interest up here too.

But it's all to play for. I've got no particular preference either way ( did vote of course but felt wasted because it was an ultra-safe Labour seat).. but it's very, very interesting times and if nothing else.. has taught me quite a bit about how the election system works UK wide. Not very well by all accounts. I had no idea things could get so complicated and weird. Probably time to change it.

Ps :- What's with all this 'unelected' Prime Minister stuff ? We vote for a party/MP locally to represent us. Not a President. John Major wasn't 'elected' either when he first got in taking over from Maggie Thatcher. No problems with that though ?
*Really, really annoying to keep hearing this time and time again on the news and from 'top political' pundits as well !!:eek: It's just not correct and so wrong to keep plugging away with this 'myth'. People vote for parties and thier own Mp's, not PM's. Never have done.. and why it's suddenly become 'an issue' I have no idea ?

**As is the Gordon Brown 'squatting' and 'clinging on to power' stuff. He can't leave and has a constitutional duty to stay ( as he mentioned on Friday) till there is a new agreed Government in place to take over. What else can he do ? Someone still has to take the calls from Afghanistan and the EU etc etc..

* rant over for the last 2 points, sorry *

What you are overlooking is that the executive (i.e Prime Minister) has a very large amount of power in our parliamentary democracy. Parliament has become sidelined particularly in the New Labour years, MPs are little more than lobby fodder, including your heavily whipped MP. Tony Benn told a joke when he stepped down as an MP- that he was leaving parliament so he could be more involved in politics. Even Cabinet has been hugely diminished- there was a time even as recently as the Thatcher government when Cabinet actually mattered in the decision making process. Now it is often the Prime Minister and a small coterie of acolytes who aren't even elected in many cases- witness the incredible rebirth of "Lord" Mandelson to be one of the most powerful men in Britain, along with an array of titles.

This is why the leadership debates did matter- they were presidential because we have a system which is increasingly presidential. For a party to fight an election and immediately replace their leader at the very start of a five year parliament and expect him to be PM is simply extraordinary.

**He isn't staying as a caretaker, he's made it quite clear that he wants his party to cling to power in a coalition of the losers. He could handover right now (or say he is going to handover) to a minority government if he wanted to.

Shakethedisease

This is why the leadership debates did matter- they were presidential because we have a system which is increasingly presidential.

Yet, isn't. So not much to be said there really. We don't elect a PM, that's the collective labour MPs' job as consitutions go in the UK.

No point moaning about it.

**He isn't staying as a caretaker, he's made it quite clear that he wants his party to cling to power in a coalition of the losers. He could handover right now (or say he is going to handover) to a minority government if he wanted to.

Which would be just as, if not more as, unstable as any coalition.

POPPYOSCAR

If we do end up with av I will NEVER vote Lib/dem as any choice. I would rather vote for an independent.I am disgusted with what is going on here, this is not democracy, this is not creating a stable government, this is all about party politics.LIB/DEM shame on you I used to think you were honourable.

ninky_2

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Ps :- What's with all this 'unelected' Prime Minister stuff ? We vote for a party/MP locally to represent us. Not a President. John Major wasn't 'elected' either when he first got in taking over from Maggie Thatcher. No problems with that though ?
*Really, really annoying to keep hearing this time and time again on the news and from 'top political' pundits as well !!:eek: It's just not correct and so wrong to keep plugging away with this 'myth'. People vote for parties and thier own Mp's, not PM's. Never have done.. and why it's suddenly become 'an issue' I have no idea ?

**As is the Gordon Brown 'squatting' and 'clinging on to power' stuff. He can't leave and has a constitutional duty to stay ( as he mentioned on Friday) till there is a new agreed Government in place to take over. What else can he do ? Someone still has to take the calls from Afghanistan and the EU etc etc..

* rant over for the last 2 points, sorry *

totally agree. nick robinson is being a total !!!!!! these days. i can't believe the bbc are letting him get away with it. they are supposed to put all sides to an argument and many times his so-called neutral opinion has just been an excuse to have a childish go at gordon brown.

it seems that gordon brown can't win either way. he steps down and he's still blamed for trying to scupper things for the tories!

and as for clegg, of course he is going to try to play his hand for his own values as well as realise he has to take into account the views of the other lib dem mps. you can't make people follow the whip of a party for policies they don't agree with. that's why it's called democracy.

ninky_2

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

If we do end up with av I will NEVER vote Lib/dem as any choice. I would rather vote for an independent.I am disgusted with what is going on here, this is not democracy, this is not creating a stable government, this is all about party politics.LIB/DEM shame on you I used to think you were honourable.

but av has long been a lib dem central policy. and was set out as a key manifesto pledge before the election. why is it shameful or dishonorable to stick by one of your manifesto pledges???

Cat695

Sapphire wrote: »

I agree with this. I thought Cameron and Clegg were dealing with this matter in a dignified matter until it was announced that Clegg (or LD negotiators) was having talks in secret with labour at the same time.

A party that had so few votes should not be holding the country to ransom. They are putting their own interests first, because a LD/Lab/all the other minor winners get-together will clearly not be in the interests of the country (for many reasons).

I've voted for the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour in the past. I won't ever vote for the latter two again after this (plus, in the case of Labour, after the disaster they have proved for the country).

The whole thing stinks. :mad:

Mate I completely agree........I'm on the understanding WE the people choose who runs this country......but now the MP's choose! and the party with the least votes gets to choose.

It seems they have had the last laugh.....

Cat695

ninky wrote: »

but av has long been a lib dem central policy. and was set out as a key manifesto pledge before the election. why is it shameful or dishonorable to stick by one of your manifesto pledges???

I think they are pointing towards the fact the MP's are deciding who gets into power, not the people.

[Deleted User]

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

If we do end up with av I will NEVER vote Lib/dem as any choice. I would rather vote for an independent.I am disgusted with what is going on here, this is not democracy, this is not creating a stable government, this is all about party politics.LIB/DEM shame on you I used to think you were honourable.

my family will never vote for them again either. They are showing their true colours and it stinks

Lotus-eater

Cat695 wrote: »

Mate I completely agree........I'm on the understanding WE the people choose who runs this country......but now the MP's choose! and the party with the least votes gets to choose.

It seems they have had the last laugh.....

I voted lib dem and I'm not happy about it....

We all vote and then they sit down, do dodgy, whatever deals they like and decide who will be in charge.

It's all very grubby and wrong.

Unlike some of you though, I don't blame the lib dems, they're just trying to get as many of their ideas into the government as they can, they're using the system and in a totally legal way.
It's the system that's wrong.

julieq

Good stuff from the Liberals, nice one Clegg.

We're now going to get ID Cards, fudging of the reforms needed to end benefit culture and reduce the size of the state to reduce the deficit and an arbitrary change to the voting system without any mandate just so Gordon Brown can hang on for 6 months in the hope he can do something that will prove to the world that he is not in fact an utter c0ck. When of course that is indeed what he is.

This shabby and distasteful "rainbow coalition" gives disproportionate power to the minor parties, who are now, Liberals first, rubbing their hands in glee. If you think the BNP is a danger now, just wait until we've had 12 months of paying off the SNP to assure their support to the point where the far right can accurately accuse the government of being run by the Scots for the benefit of the Scots while most of the pain is being felt south of the border. It is a recipe for disaster.

And then Brown concedes massive electoral reform without allowing it to go to referendum. Not that surprising an unelected leader believes he can do that I guess, but sorry Gordon, this is not yours to give away to buy yourself another 6 months. There is no mandate for electoral reform without referendum, it was not offered in any manifesto except the Liberals, which was rejected by 75% of the electorate.

Such Tory zealots as John Reid and David Blunkett have pointed out that this is a cynical stitch-up, and I can't help agreeing with them. Far from cementing a centre left coalition on the basis of a reasonable and principled position, which is how the Liberals sold themselves, Clegg is showing himself as a cynical careerist bent on imposing his will regardless of the expressed wish of the electorate, and lining up behind him are the other failed parties which he will discover are fully able and willing to exercise the same arm twisting he is engaged in to get their will.

Utterly disgraceful. The rationalist in me is trying to steer clear of comparisons to Zanu-PF, but really it's very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Brown has learned lessons from Mugabe's tenacity and refusal to concede the levers of power.