New Blog

Hi, as you know I have left the Liberal Democrats, but if any of you still want to read my blog (which I hope you do) then I have got a new site at:

http://janespoliticalramblings.wordpress.com/

Thanks,

Hope to still hear from some of you

Why I am leaving the Liberal Democrats…

Earlier today, I expressed:

“I am staying in the LibDems to hopefully see that I am wrong, and that this coalition does work. Ideologically I am a lot closer to the Libdems than the other parties. But if I continue to suffer from these attacks I will not stay a Libdem for long. Nor will I stay for long if the LibDems seriously compromise our values within the coalition.”

After a day of sustained personal attacks (some have asked for some evidence – scroll to comment 31 where I provide some quotes), and my views around this coalition becoming the clearer the more I state my opposition to it, I have decided to leave the Liberal Democrats and join The Green party. Staying in this party has apparently to some lead to me bringing this party into disrepute, and I do not want that to happen. If I cannot voice my opposition to the coalition without being said to threaten the actual party, I am afraid my position as a LibDem member is untenable.

My policy disagreements are vast, but here are a few I am specfically adverse to:

• I did not like our policies on immigration already, but we are now going to support a total cap – illiberal.
• We are accepting their eurosceptic stance on EU, saying that we will not let anymore powers go from Westminster to Brussels. Illiberal and out of touch.
• Most of our policies are watered down or sent to comittees. Take breaking up the banks, house of lords reform, tax reforms are not as comphrensive as we wanted.
• We have removed our commitment to removing Trident, and actually today seeing the confirmation of more nucelar power.
• We can only abstain against many Tory proposals such as marriage tax, higher education policies that may include an uncaping of the tution fees.
• Inheritance tax is not dropped – will most likely reappear.
• It is undemocratic to have a new 55% majority to bring down the govrenment, basically securing the term.
• We are going to cut at a much faster and deeper rate, something Vince Cable had said would threaten a double dip recession.
• This is not a case example of the coalition PR government – it is a FPTP system – there would be more compromise and more consideration of other parties in a proper PR system. Furthermore, we have failed case examples of FPTP coalitions – take 1974 for example – which has not destroyed the case for electoral reform (my opposition has said to be a threat to PR).

I do leave the Liberal Democrats still fully supporting what they stand for. Unfortunately, I think we have compromised too many of our central beliefs in a bid for power. I know many of you agree with the coalition, and it has become apparent that it is best I leave instead of trying to argue my case within.

I wish the Liberal Democrats all the best in the future, there is no nasty feelings between me and LibDems. It is instead, like a lot of people, a great sense of disappointment. I hope people understand why I did this.

I have enjoyed my time in the Liberal Democrats. I wish the party good luck.

Thanks,

Jane

Answering the critiques

I can quite happily discuss political differences, but when my stance on the coalition between the LibDems and the Tories results in people, some I know, personally attacking me – I feel that I have a right to respond more openly. Most of you who have raised your opposition to my views with respect. I respect your viewpoint, as I can tell you respect mine. But when it comes to bitter comments such as calling me a ‘national fool’ – then to me, that has gone too far.

Furthermore, I will not be told to monitor my words on my blog in correspondence with the local party/members/liberal democrat students. What goes on my blog is my own and no one else’s view. I have heard people’s views on the deal and I accept where you are coming from but I will not be bullied into thinking it myself.

I am staying in the LibDems to hopefully see that I am wrong, and that this coalition does work. Ideologically I am a lot closer to the Libdems than the other parties. But if I continue to suffer from these attacks I will not stay a Libdem for long. Nor will I stay for long if the LibDems seriously compromise our values within the coalition.

I am fully aware coalitions involve compromise. I just don’t see the deal we have got as that ground breaking. Obviously, I am in a disagreement with many of you. Something I accept. Something some of you have to accept too.

I will not accept people trying to make out that my comments alone with bring down the case for PR. That is unfair and denying members, I am not a whipped MP, to have the right to voice their objections. This is what this conference on Sunday is for – for people to voice their own concerns. Hounding down on anyone who does not agree with you is not democracy and it is certainly not why I joined the LibDems.

Cabinet Positions: A blow to the fight for women’s equality

So really, where are the women? Out of 29 cabinet posts, how many of those do you think are women? Take a guess. The answer is 4. Yes, 4! To say that Cameron is an active promoter for all-women short lists, he certainly forgot about that when picking his premier (that is not to say I agree with all-women shortlists – I have voiced my opposition to them a countless number of times). And Clegg, to say that he is supposedly in a party who pride themselves on equality, it is very disappointing that none of the LibDem cabinet posts went to a woman.

Well firstly, I have my own views regarding the LibDem cabinet positions. Everyone of them appointed were involved in the discussions and negotiations – can it be any more obvious why?. It can be the only explanation for why Simon Hughes for example, a very competent LEFT centered LibDem, is shafted for Chirs Huhme (involved in the negotiations) at energy and climate change.

Lets consider the women who do feature within the cabinet. Theresa May is the token woman, as both Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equality. The latter ministerial position should have definitely been given to a woman within the LibDems given that we are witnessing a quite exciting movement within our party, who advocate the advancement of women’s rights (e.g Real Woman campaign). MPs I am thinking of here include Jo Swinson, Lynne Featherstone and Sarah Teather. A ministerial position for Woman and Equality, in my opinion, requires 100% input and this is hardly going to happen when May is busy implementing policies such as the unworkable immigration cap.

More on Theresa May. Lets not forget that Home Secretary is not seen as an admirable position by many. Look at those before May, Johnson arguably ruined his leadership bid with an array of incompetent decisions. Then Jacqui Smith, who faced a very tough time before Johnson – and eventually resigned under the pressure. So for starters, May hardly got a great deal as the most prominent woman minister.

Now more on this equality position of hers. As PinkPaper point out:

“In 1998 she voted against an equal age of consent. In 2000 she voted against the repeal of Section 28. In 2001 and 2002, she voted against gays and lesbians being able to adopt. And in 2008 she voted against legislation which removed the need for a father in lesbians undergoing IVF treatment.”

Hardly a portfolio of someone who is supposed to be championing equality, is it? Lets also remember that she is in favour of cutting the abortion limit. No wonder Cameron has given her the Women and Equality ministerial position when she fits in with his views so nicely.

Something else that has sprung to mind, which I was actually going to blog the other day but is more relevant now, whilst Lynne Featherstone and Harriet Harman pledged their support to try to reduce the objectification caused by The Sun’s page 3, May said she would not. No prizes for guessing the obvious reason for why this may be the case, but despite Murdock’s Sun newspaper- there is obviously something fundamentally missing from May’s ability to be a firm promoter of women’s causes.

Whilst I would not advocate a banning of page 3, which I am sure the LibDems would not advocate, due to the damages it would do to liberal values – I think it is equally illiberal to have no real regulation over the newspaper. Instead, there should be adaption of the proposals to regulate The Sun and The Daily Sport in the same ways other sexually explicitly material are – this is what I think Harman and Featherstone meant when it came to tackling the paper.

As you might be able to tell, I am not best pleased with the cabinet selection. Women’s equality, I feel, will not be adequately promoted by only having under a handful of women cabinet ministers and an MP for Women and Equality who has an abysmal record on equality and women’s rights.

LibDem/Tory Coalition, aka. The iron hand in the velvet glove

So, it looks like its finally resolved. Brown’s gone. Cameron’s in. And LibDem’s have jumped into bed with the Tories. Oh dear. Yes, I can see why it may have happened. But as part of the more left-wing part of the party, I can never support a LibDem/Tory coalition. I genuinely think this is the start of a serious destruction of the LibDems. We are going to be seriously squeezed in the next election. Labour will replace us in the north – we have already lost control of councils such as Sheffield – and the Tories will replace us in the south.

We are going to be the soft face of a nasty government. But there again, how soft are we in practice? There have been reports that Labour, rightly, did not do a deal with us because we want more wide-ranging, deeper public services cuts – starting this year (whatever happened to Cable’s rejection of the Tories’ economic polices?). You can tell Clegg went into the Labour talks not wanting a deal, instead, they happened just to purely satisfy the members. Well, Clegg has made his choice. He will get his power, as rumour is it he will be deputy leader. But, he will lose a lot of the core. The core who have been so vigorously opposed to most of what the Tories stand for.

The LibDem MPs have been well whipped so far, but there will be defections. It will be interesting to see who does defect. You can tell that many of the more centre left MPs are grimmicing when they throw their ‘support’ behind the coalition proposals. Whilst it sounds promising that Tory policies such as inheritance tax has been put on ‘hold’, and they will look at implementing a compromised version of our tax reforms (“look at” and “compromised” is key here), I think that the fixed parliament reform, which was much-needed, will secure us into a long and painful death.

One thing we have to remember however, is that this was a real opportunity for PR wasted. We didn’t really push Labour far enough to try to get PR on a referendum – as I said, it was clear the leadership never really wanted to go with Labour. Instead, we will have to settle for AV, well a referendum on AV.

Regardless, I sense things to come for the LibDems may not be as rosy as the leadership may think and hope. When we come to important issues such as Europe, immigration, environment and higher education funding (will Clegg uncap the tuition fees and push his core membership even further away?), it is going to be very interesting to see how well the Tory whip is sustained across the LibDem MPs.

I hope I am wrong. I hope this coalition is good for the country, and the LibDems. But personally, I feel this will be nothing short of a disaster. Suffice to say, I don’t agree with Nick.

Shirley Williams’ criticisms well meant but off the mark

The first well-known Liberal Democrat, Shirley Williams, has finally come out against a formal coalition with the Tories. However, Shirley’s criticism, in terms of substance, is not that pleasing when we consider that she would prefer the LibDems to prop up a minority Tory government with a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement. This would be the worst possible outcome, in my opinion, for the LibDems. Not only would we have scampered any chance of real political reform (especially electoral reform), it would be very likely there would be an early election with the Tories capitalising due to their lucid funding possibilities.

Whilst half rejecting the Tories, Williams ironically and indirectly supports the Tories’ offer of a ‘Jenkins’ 2′ all-party committee on electoral reform, as The Guardian report:

“She called for an all party committee on political reform, chaired or advised by the former MP Tony Wright, who left the House of Commons this year after chairing a respected committee on the reform of parliament and whose recommendations met with varied success including some of its elements opposed by the government.”

I think most people agree we are beyond the stage of needing any further committees. Most people are full aware that we need a real change to our political system. Thus, what Williams is trying to phrase as a rejection of the Tories’ ideologically is actually indirectly, a support of part of their coalition proposals. We can’t seriously expect another committee to lead to anything else other than further deliberation and pointless discussions – by the time we have even decided anything, the Tories would have probably called an election and then this historical chance would be wasted.

Regardless, whilst I am not going to delve into the discussions regarding whether the union is desirable or not, Williams is right to remark that:

“The Tories have been talking almost entirely about England.”

There is no surprise when considering that the Tories only managed to secure one MP in Scotland! Whilst they did better in Wales, it shows that all this talk about the Conservatives having a clear ‘mandate’ is really only concentrating on the Tories’ results in England (and even then, they don’t have one). It makes the case for the SNP’s nationalist argument, as why is it fair that the Tories would have governance over Scotland when the Tories only have one MP there? These coalition talks between the Tories and LibDem are clearly Englandcentric – this is another reason why a progressive alliance of Labour and the LibDems with the SNP and other minority parties would be more productive.

Will Clegg listen to us?

Power 2010′s electoral reform demonstrations today really captured the mood of many voters, particularly those who voted LibDem, when it comes to electoral reform and more extensive political reform. Even if the Tories do offer us electoral reform, which I find very unlike seen as Cameron would most likely face a leadership challenge if he did, they will not implement the extensive political reform the Libdems’ want and the country needs. This is not to mention all the other areas of political disjuncture between us and the Tories, which I think most of our members have voiced their concerns about.

Whilst Nick Clegg addressed these protests with the words that has made him and us such an exciting force in the election, I will no longer believe them until he stops these pointless talks with the Tories and realises that the only way we can possibly deliver most of our policies and principles is with what Alex Salmond has rightly called, a ‘progressive alliance’. Power 2010 claim:

“For the first time in a long time it feels like the politicians are listening to us.  Nick Clegg heard our demands. He took the petition that tens of thousands of us have signed. Clegg holds the balance of power and the fate of Proportional Representation in his hands. But today as the crowd chanted, “Don’t sell out” – people power forced him to speak to us.”

Well, personally, if Clegg continues these talks and actually does what it appears he is going to do – and that is back the Tories – he hasn’t listened to us. He has stabbed his party members in the back, most of who have campaigned on policies that are essential for political reform. If he joins the Tories, all those hopes and aspirations will die, it, in my opinion, will start the destruction of this party. If Clegg does listen however, as Power 2010 right say, it will be he and the LibDems who have taken this historical moment to seize the much-needed change to the voting system.

If Clegg is to claim, when he was addressing the rally:

“I’ve campaigned for a better, more open, more transparent, new politics, every single day of this general election campaign. I genuinely believe it is in the national interest.”

Then trying to form a deal with the Tories is a waste of time. Labour would replace us as the party of reform, our chance of becoming the new ‘progressive’ party will be destroyed, and Tories would replace us in the south – as why bother voting for the LibDems if they are just the mini Tories? Furthermore, we will see mass membership defections and most likely MPs and councillors defecting. This really would be, in my opinion, the end of the LibDems as we know it.