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.
May 11, 2010 at 9:12 pm
I think you’ve put it in very fair terms Janet its been a well worn joke this election that Turkeys never vote for Christmas but thats exactly what Clegg hss done in effect because the next chance Lib dem voters get to show Clegg what a dreadful mistake hes made , he’ll be well and truly plucked.
May 11, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Thanks (btw my names Jane haha:)!) I totally agree! Clegg has made a total mess of this, and he will pay for this. He will have his days as deputy, but he will have to face the full force of the backlash against his stupid decision. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost his seat!
May 11, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Waiting to hear from Clegg before i finally decide – but I cant see me voting Libdem again – this from a lifetime Lib voter. Labour or Green from now on.
May 11, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I beg your pardon Jane sorry
May 11, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Instinctively I agree with you but if we are going to rule out working with the Tories, how can we argue for PR? For PR to work, parties need to hold their noses and find ways to work with each other. That is what we are having to do here.
If we can make this work, it will be a fantastic advert for PR: the argument that coalitions cannot work will be shown to be wrong. If we cannot make this work, it will be very hard to counter the argument that we need to maximise the chances of bringing in strong governments – i.e. keeping FPTP.
May 12, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Did you write this before or after the coalition document came out? The amount of policies that have made it in there, and the amount of Tory ones that have not, is bloody incredible.
In terms of getting policy implemented over power or popularity, I’d say this is one hell of a deal.
May 12, 2010 at 5:59 pm
For a very short time in May 2010 I thought voting Lib Dem was worth considering. I guess there are many others that thought the same. As a long time Labour support I think Clegg has stuffed the Lib Dems for the next twenty years. If first past the post is the format for the next general election, 20 Lib Dem MPs maybe an over optimistic aim.
Heck they maybe get down to 20 MPs on defections alone:)
May 12, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Jane, Once you start looking at what has actually been agreed to it doesn’t add up to a thing. They have sold out for vanity, in my mind. It is interesting also to see what positions have been handed out to Mr. cleggs team – I just think this will all end in tears and if the tories have their way then boundaries are going to be rearranged and the votes will all swing their way – again that’s a surprise. I would love to know what on earth Mr. Clegg said to get the old timers to agree to this, apparently only 1 mp said no!!!
May 12, 2010 at 9:20 pm
arcturis,
what did you decide?
Rod,
haha, don’t worry about it lol:) I found it funny.
Sol,
Yes, I agree. But the thing is we need to get PR in the first place – and we really blew that chance away. We are not going to get hardly any of the reforms we needed – I just don’t feel like we satisfied our options well enough with Labour negotiations.
I agree, I hope it does work – i really do. But, personally, I feel the case for PR is dead now anyway.
mattwpbs,
I did write it before, yes. I don’t know if we are looking at the same thing but i certainly don’t know what is to be so pleased about. Half of our policies are watered down or given to committees – which we know by now, doesn’t work. Furthermore, most of the really bad Tory policies either made it through or we have the liberty of abstaining – how nice.
Stephen Jack,
I totally agree with you. You are definitely not going to be alone in going back to Labour. I really agree, I think personally this will result in a major problem for our party. I think you are right, I have been arguing myself that we will go down to around like 20 MPs next election – we will see wont we.
Zoe,
I totally agree! I have been shot down by so many LibDems saying that we have got such a good deal – I really can’t see it tbh – we have either got to abstain from their horrible policies or put up with their really nasty ones, and ours have been watered down or have a nice pointless committee attached to it!
It has been a vanity exercise indeed. I really wouldn’t put it past the Tories changing the boundaries to suit their own needs either! Omg your joking! Which MP said no?
May 12, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Zoe, apparently it was one person against out of the MPs, Lords and the Federal Executive. There’s stuff in the coalition document which would never have had a chance with Labour, on civil liberties especially.
I’ll quote Duncan Barrowman from the Exec, because I think he’s spot on:
“Tonight, as a member of the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive, I took part in the joint meeting of the Federal Executive and Parliamentary Party.
I attended with a heavy heart, I have fought the Conservatives for decades, I entered thinking there was a 90% chance that I would vote against the deal on the table. I was wrong. Of all the Liberal Democrat MPs, all the Liberal Democrat Peers (who don’t technically have a vote) and all the Federal Executive, in three separate votes after nearly 3 hours of discussion, only the hand of one Federal Executive member went up against what we had before us. No member of the Parliamentary Party voted against. Out of over 100 people voting, only one voted against.
So why did I vote for the package?
Despite what I have now seen on the rolling news, the package, which I had in my hand to read in full, was packed with Liberal Democrat policies. I could not turn down what the package had to offer.”
http://duncanborrowman.blogspot.com/2010/05/lib-dems-in-government.html
May 12, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Jane:
Linking of pensions to the highest of earnings, prices, and 2.5% will massively help people like my Grandmother, as will the £10k threshold.
Switching tax from per passenger to per plane will create a massive incentive for airlines to stop running half empty planes, floor prices for carbon, etc. The green policies in there are great.
Fixed term parliaments, reform of the House Of Lords and an AV referendum (as a step forward) are damn good for electoral reform.
The civil liberties parts are great, ID cards gone, restoration of right to protest, anti terror law abuse to be addressed.
May 12, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Well I listened to Clegg and Cameron and ditching the trident, top up fees policies. What do we get in return apart from the a large number of privately educated wealthy white male cabinet members
In the short term..tax cuts for those under £10k – would have happened anyway, postponement of inheritance tax rebate, Chris Huhne to do what exactly, and reform of the banking system which if the Tories wanted to stay in power they would do anyway .A doubtful referendum on AV that is not in anyway PR. Libdems also get an option not to support the Cons position on some key reports such as Lord Brownes – laughable
Long term benefit? I cant see how any of what has been agreed will result in a fairer more equal and freer society.
Really disappointed but not surprised by the idiot Labour Party’s position
At the end of it all I voted for a fairer society and a fairer electoral system – cant see it happening now. Clegg will have little influence once the Tory Mandarins started operating the establishment levers and will realise what an error this is. Should have let the Tories have their minority government so they would show their true colours. Now they will simply blame Libdems….
I will look elsewhere – hope Labour sort themselves out and the Greens field more candidates
May 12, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Oh, and here’s one other thing.
You do realise this could quite effectively destroy the hardliners in the Conservative party?
Remember the amount of power the Eurosceptics had in John Major’s government? They were able to do that by threatening to rebel on bills they disagreed with. If the hardliners threaten to rebel on stuff they disagree with, it’s going to be the stuff that is in the coalition document from the Liberal Democrat side. They’d be relying on all the non-coalition MPs voting against as well, which is just unlikely on the stuff from our side.
The Tory hardliners can now only effectively sabotage the hardline Tory policies. They’ve become toothless.
May 12, 2010 at 9:51 pm
arcturis:
You think that the Conservatives would have suddenly ditched their inheritance tax break, and raised the income tax threshold…?
Why do you think that?
May 12, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Jane,
I don’t understand. Even if the Labour hierarchy had made a deal with the LibDems on PR, the chance of Lib/Lab getting legislation on it through the Commons was zero. All it would have taken was 10 Labour rebels – and there would have been many more than that (many labour MPs are dead set against it). Under a deal with Labour there would have been no chance even of getting a referendum on AV (whatever the Labour leadership had agreed to).
Of course, a referendum on AV is not everything one might hope for – but it’s better than nothing, and nothing is precisely what would have come out of a deal with Labour. In fact, the LibDems have taken the one course of action that has some chance of achieving electoral reform. So you should not talk about “blowing chances away”, “opportunity for PR wasted”. This was the only step in the right direction available.
May 12, 2010 at 10:41 pm
sure – tidying up the working tax credit mess – its an open goal and they would have done it. inheritance was a landmine ready to blow – Libdems saved the Tories from taking the obvious step of “postponing” themselves – they were on a loser – no real economic benefit but massive political damage in the country – reinforcing the “nasty tories” image. Cameron would have postponed it anyway citing the mess Labour left etc etc. Not only did they save themselves from political fall out they won a concession as well – lol at Libdem negotiators
May 12, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Good article.
Very disappointed. Normally vote socialist or green, but voted LibDem in the hope of PR. Gutted.
May 13, 2010 at 8:16 am
On the surface it looks like a good deal, but I think Clegg has just signed the death warrant for his own party. Even if this is a success, what happens to those Lib Dem ministers when the Tories no longer need the party? They’ll get cherry picked and the rest of the party will be kicked aside, most likely.
Who is going to trust the Lib Dems in future? Certainly not me after this. I think Lib Dem voters who have embraced this deal are being very naive if they expect a party with the kind of right wing links they have forged in Europe and who only a couple of weeks ago produced a document talking in the most hardline terms about Europe to have suddenly become all cuddly and reasonable. It is noticeable that the two most right wing members of the cabinet are installed at Work and Pensions for example…
One other thing I don’t like is the change to fixed term parliaments with 55% of MPs needed to force a no confidence dissolution. That is very dangerous in my opinion. All this talk of sacking your MP if he or she is a bad MP, yet they’ve just made it harder to remove a bad government. So much for new politics.
May 13, 2010 at 9:06 am
Sorry my youngest is just getting over Tonsilitis like a couple of marbles and the rest you don’t want to hear so what do i think by the sounds of it LibDems have got want they want in some areas on paper the devil is in the detail. for me tax breaks for married couples and the like are just not relevant to modern Britain . I have two kids my partner and i have been with each other for 19 years we are not married but we provide as stable loving enviromnet for our kids so which Tory policy is good for us. Getting rid of tax altogether for low income families i’ll go with that but looking towards individuals and Camerons idea of the Big Society , big failure for me getting rid of Surestart which everyone thinks is great help for low income families in poor areas with high unemployment . getting rid of the £250 child bond whats happening with that ?. Assisted free Nursery places, Social housing projects New school building programme new Hospitals the list is endless .
Now you may say well hey the LibDems are in the perfect place position to influence all of these things now , when unemployment continues to go up once the cuts that are agreed go into effect, housiing market takes a dive either with or without giving tax breaks in whatever form, because without confidence in the jobs market everything is else is blighted i don’t don’t see Tory voters blaming their party but i do see LibDems getting savaged in any byelection and then where does that leave a coalition with the Tries then in an incrementally forlarn and parlous state.