According to the Independent (it was, are you?) Nick Clegg has declared that he could support a Cameron Conservative Government if it promoted 'genuinely liberal policies'. The paper goes on to note that this declaration is likely to anger party activists who are hostile to the Tories.
DIfficult to know whether to respond with 'Duuh!' or 'Too f***ing right!'. Neither seem quite strong enough. I voted for Nickers primarily because he was the only candidate to declare a real ambition for us to win an election outright, which is what I want. Don't we all? If not, shouldn't we all or what the Hell are we doing?
I do not want to spend the rest of my life trudging the streets of the next by-election contest putting endless leaflets through doors trying to get the message that I mostly believe in across to another few thousand weary voters to persuade them to support our candidate so that they can go to Westminster to support a bunch of lying, sleazy Tories as they screw things up once again. I thought Nickers shared the same outlook on things but I see now that I may have been cruelly deceived, much as David Steel was in 1977...
If I may venture a value judgement, I would not trust a Tory even if he had the only bottle of Evian for 500 miles and my arse was on fire.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
THE DAY THE LIB DEMS DIED?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
To borrow your phrase, too f***ing right! The objective must be a Lib-Dem government. What is the point otherwise? Why bother? If we just want to be a rump to another party's government, why not just join up now?
So the Tories are going to introduce PR and disestablish the Church of England? Although with all the current rumpus they might be thinking about the latter.
Manfarang
Bangkok
Well, that's a helpful attitude...
Firstly - what are the chances that the Tories would advocate truly liberal policies?
This is different from Steel. He went in with Callaghan to support a minority government, not to advance liberalism.
Secondly - I know ex-Tories in the party (they tend to keep it quiet). They saw the light and that the Tories are not liberals, despite some of then noises in the 80s.
Tories are not evil demons. There are some admirable people in the Tory party and quite a few liberals (if not enough to have much impact).
I thought we were meant to be above Punch and Judy politics. Working with people to promote liberalism.
Labour definitely aren't a vehicle for liberalism. I too doubt the Tories are either, but they have more vocal liberals in their ranks.
Why the hostility to the Tories? We support PR, and an almost inevitable part of that is coalition (or minority) governments and consensus decisions, rather than unilateral lawmaking. Unless we win an election outright, we would have to support either the Tories or Labour in government, and as long as they are willing to put through genuinely liberal policies and we can tame their more outlandish instincts, what is wrong with that?
I'm hostile to the Tories because I encounter them where I live and work and I see very little of value in anything they say or do - with one or two honourable exceptions. Dave's my MP and he's a nice bloke but getting him to commit to thing is like putting a bathing costume on a moist otter. The otter would invariably wriggle out of of the swimsuit...
I simply don't want our leader holding up the white flag at this point. I want us to do what St Paddy did: to go into an election - every election - saying we want to win. If a coalition results from a good contest at which we have done the best we can, then I'll 'drink from that cup of poison' at that time. Until then I want us to hammer the other two parties, as we have been doing recently with both the mighty Vince and Nickers.
My question to Nickers is therefore why change a winning formula?
"why change a winning formula?"
Cos it hasn't worked ? I'm all for saying we want to win outright but it's not convincing
we must get accross the point that its not about putting in labour or the tories in, it's about putting the Lib Dems in. Nick could do with a bit of Obama style "I've been at westminter long enough to know the way of westminster must change."
Post a Comment