Yes but that’s because you’re selfish and heartless.

Oop, the Labour moral high ground claim again – if you’re not with us you’re nasty. Tribal nonsense.

Can someone remind me what the problem is with Nuclear?

What’s that got to do with anything ? 😕

The issue here isn’t whether nuclear energy is right or wrong, it might well be the best idea since sliced bread.

Chris Huhne was elected on a platform of total opposition to it.

The electorate has a right to expect him not to now, become an enthusiastic supporter of it…….which he has now become.

I repeat, this is clear electoral fraud.

Who can be bothered to care?

it’s just politics

No it isn’t.

Not doing exactly what you said you were going to do, might well be “just politics”, even though that in itself is completely unacceptable to most people – hence the very poor opinion most people have of politicians.

But we are not talking about a politician not doing exactly what he said he were going to do here.

We are talking about politicians doing the complete opposite to what they promised they would do.

Far more serious imo, and as bad as stuffing ballot boxes or postal vote fraud.

I think that Harriet Harman’s let herself down with that comment. Nothing to do with policies or politics. Any politician resorting to that sort of petty jibe loses my respect. They should have more useful things to say. I also don’t get this whole “have a go at people with red hair” thing. No different to having a go at the colour of someone’s skin in my book. It just has a nasty, bullying, undertone that I don’t like. They should be above all that.

if you’re not with us you’re nasty

It’s true though- Tory politics are politics of greed and selfishness. History has proven this. Just about every great social institution in Britain has been created by the Left. Welfare State, NHS, Minimum Wage, Race Relations Act and loads more have all come during Labour Governments. Stuff that many Conservatives hate, as they’d rather a population divided along economic lines, to provide a cheap subservient workforce to make the rich even richer. Following on from feudalism. Britain is a nation whose greatness comes from it’s workers; very often, as is still true today, the Toffs stand in the way of this nation’s true potential. Read your history, and learn something. Deep down you know I’m right. The only reason to ever vote Tory is because you are concerned more with your own interests, than the good of Society as a whole. That, or you’re thick and easily fooled.

There really is no point in arguing with me, as you’re only arguing against the Truth. So do yourself a favour, pour another glass of Chateau de Ponce 1981, and think yourself lucky you don’t have to think for yourself much.

There really is no point in arguing with me

Agreed.

Good lad. You know it makes sense.

It’s ok though; we have a Secret Ballot, so you don’t have to vote Tory any more, now you’ve been enlightened.

See, if I was a Tory, I’d probbly try to charge you for such an educational service. Fortunately I believe in the good in Socialism.

Read your history, and learn something.

Elf connects hammer with top of pointy metal thing.

The NHS and welfare state were both liberal initiatives weren’t they?

Pieface – Member

The NHS and welfare state were both liberal initiatives weren’t they?

No. learn some history. Introduced by a labour government. Bevan was the main architect of it. Beveridge whos work with the LSE was a part of the foundations did join the liberal party although he had also been allied with the fabian socisty who are socialists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan

http://www.nhshistory.net/shorthistory.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Beveridge

The NHS and welfare state were both liberal initiatives weren’t they?

Surely that’s a wind up ? I can’t believe that anyone thinks the postwar government which created the NHS and welfare state was a Liberal one.

In fact the complete opposite is true……it is precisely because the Liberals were reduced to just 12 MPs, that Labour were able to secure the huge majority necessary to transform Britain into a social-democracy.

Hmm. I’d say a coalition member sometimes has to support things that aren’t what their own party stands for… for it to be otherwise would mean their party had the power of veto over the coalition government as a whole

When you support soemthing you opposed as part of your electoral ticket you are surely be definition a turn coat. Clealry the lib dems are supporting things they did not stand for and actively opposed. Many people think that policies that violate your previously held principles and electoral pledges means you should indeed veto it – you have no electoral mandate to ignore your voters do you?. The opposite is to enable a party without a mandate/majority to do ONLY what they proposed at the election which is at least as bad morally and much worse , surely , in the eyes of a Lib Dem voters who did not vote for these policies but their party/votes enable them to occur. Compromise is one thing , capitulation and the abondement of your principles is another. The lib Dems seem to have done far too much of the later.

In an Elfinist Elfintocracy, the Tories would be banned, as would all other right-wing nasty parties. In fact I’d abolish voting; there wouldn’t be any point as Elfinism is the perfect solution, so nobody would want to vote anyway as they’d all be happy with how things were. Would save the nation a fortune.

I repeat, this is clear electoral fraud.

er…

I think this is more like election fraud
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7999018/Phil-Woolas-the-toxic-claims-that-turned-tide-for-former-minister.html

and right on your doorstep Mr Elfinsafety

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-investigate-electoral-fraud-claims-after-journalist-is-beaten-up-1962536.html

Lib Dems were in a no-win situation with the election result and picked what they thought was the best option out of a bad bunch (ie sign up, get quite a lot of your manifesto implemented, suffer the stuff you don’t like, get experience of running key departments)

The option of forcing a second general election or propping up GB/ Harriet Harman and her cronies in their attempt to turn the UK into a economic backwater obviously didn’t sound too good

big and daft – you miss the option I think they should have taken. Discussions with the tories to support a queens speech in exchange for a promise of electoral reform, let Cameron run a minority government. This is effectively what happens at holyrood with a similar arithmetic ( but SNP as biggest party)

No ministerial jobs for the Liberals but they wouldn’t be facing electoral oblivion for supporting this awful tory government and it would have moderated the tories more – some of the more ridiculous things they would not be able to get thru.

Trouble is they were seduced by ministerial cars. They will pay the electoral price. Teh country will pay the price as well in massive unemployment and a destroyed economy.

They will pay the electoral price. Teh country will pay the price as well in massive unemployment and a destroyed economy.

That the country will descend into economic ruin of course remains to be seen, and if the country doesn’t pay this price then it could well be that the Lib Dems do okay in the next elections too.

That said, this article (which I found last night whilst thinking about points made on this thread) on New Zealand’s recent experience with coalition government supports what you (TJ) say is the route the Lib Dems should have taken:

First, we had the “ironclad coalition agreement” of Winston Peters, a document which sought to lay out exhaustively the policies of the 1996-98 National – NZ First coalition, and which bound both parties to agree on everything. This failed because a) the parties didn’t agree on everything; and b) the shared caucus model allowed NZ First to simply be outvoted then forced to support policies they opposed – a model which turned them into the political equivalent of a doormat. So, since then, New Zealand governments have pursued successively looser arrangements,

The article goes on to look at these looser arrangements.

I’m hopeful for the Lib Dems. They’ve got four more years to work this out and show the country that coalition governments can work well.

Teh country will pay the price as well in massive unemployment and a destroyed economy.

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
We must make our election between economy and liberty
or profusion and servitude.

If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and
in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and
our amusements, for our calling and our creeds…
we [will] have no time to think,
no means of calling our miss-managers to account
but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves
to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
And this is the tendency of all human governments.
A departure from principle in one instance
becomes a precedent for another
till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery.
And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt.
Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”

— Thomas Jefferson
Author of The Declaration of Independence,
Founding Father, 3rd US President

Thomas Jefferson
Author of The Declaration of Independence,
Founding Father, 3rd US President
Slave Owner

FTFY…

Oh yeah, and he was in debt until he died…

Nice one Tom 🙁

big_n_daft – Member

er…

I think this is more like election fraud

If someone makes clearly fraudulent claims concerning what they will or will not do once elected, then that amounts to electoral fraud as far as I’m concerned.

And the LibDems have done that on mass.

Not minor alterations concerning minor details, but the complete reversal of central pillars of their election manifesto.

Whether Phil Woolas has or has not, broken electoral law, or whether George Galloway’s allegations are upheld, is utterly irrelevant.

There might well be corrupt individuals in the Labour Party, or any other party for that matter, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that the LibDems, as a party, made fraudulent claims during the election campaign.

They even went so far as organising photographs to be taken of them publicly signing pledges, so that voters would have not doubt at all where they stood. They were elected on that basis. Within weeks they had spectacularly broken those pledges. That represents electoral fraud as far as I’m concerned.

Even as we speak, Chris Huhne’s own website describes nuclear energy as, quote : “a tried tested and failed technology which is clearly a costly blind alley”

DIRTY DOZEN SHOWS THAT CONSERVATIVES ARE STILL ‘TOXIC TORIES’ – HUHNE

However today Chris Huhne, after potentially taking a large amount of Green votes, enthusiastically supports nuclear energy.

You might think big_n_daft, that digging up a couple of possibly dodgy Labour politicians somehow exonerates the LibDems of false and fraudulent claims, I most certainly don’t.

They’ve got four more years to work this out and show the country that coalition governments can work well.

why ?we know they can work they do elsewhere and have here surely their main job is to represent the people who voted for them, the ticket they stood on and achieve their electoral promises. We could have a rock solid coalition if the lib dems just say yes dave but I would find it difficult to describe this as a success
Loose coalition rather than enabling the Tories to do things the Lib dems opposed at the election – economic cuts being a fairly obvious example. Honouring long held principles like removing Uni costs. They seem to have said yes to almost anything as long as they get a PR vote

They seem to have said yes to almost anything as long as they get a PR vote

But they’ve done it in such a way that they’ll be lucky to ever gain any representation in a PR style parliament, massively shooting themselves through their Hush Puppies. Who’d vote for the slimy ****ers after this.

You might think big_n_daft, that digging up a couple of possibly dodgy Labour politicians somehow exonerates the LibDems of false and fraudulent claims, I most certainly don’t.

I don’t think they care either, you would never vote for them other than tactically to keep the conservatives out anyway

They seem to have said yes to almost anything as long as they get a PR vote

it’s called plaing the long game, without some change to the electoral system labours gerrymandering will keep them out of any number of seats in future elections for the next 25 years

Labour have not gerrymandered – although he current system does favour them. The tories are proposing the biggest bit of gerrymandering ever attempted in the UK

Playing the long game? They have destroyed themselves as a credible UK party. Tehy will never get another sniff of power. Tehy won’t get a vote on PR thru.

Labour have not gerrymandered – although [t]he current system does favour them.

Who exactly put said system in place, TJ?

Laughable.

you would never vote for them [the Liberal Democrats] other than tactically to keep the conservatives out anyway

This seems a pretty common view, particularly amongst Labour supporters, but it’s not borne out by the polling evidence.

without some change to the electoral system labours gerrymandering will keep them out of any number of seats in future elections for the next 25 years

And if you’re never going to be king then it’s pretty sweet to be kingmaker!

Laughable.

No you’re laughable.

it’s called plaing the long game

selling out your princioples, not delivering your promises, failing to stand up for the platfirm you were voted in on ….they did not even get the version of PR they wanted- are better explanations.

This seems a pretty common view, particularly amongst Labour supporters, but it’s not borne out by the polling evidence.

source/reference please – interested

massively shooting themselves through their Hush Puppies

😀

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Labour have not gerrymandered – although [t]he current system does favour them.

Who exactly put said system in place, TJ?

It has grown over decades – Labour did not gerrymander teh constituency boundaries. find any time they were even accused of it.

One of the reasons the current system suits labour is the geographical distribution of their votes.

source/reference please – interested

Hey Junkyard

All these from the political betting blog… I think a nicely run blog that is party neutral and pretty sharp.

Did the reds really come to the aid of the yellows?

Could AV end up destroying the Lib Dems?

What’ll Lib Dems do in the LAB-CON marginals?

That last one is pre-election, and you’ll need to work through the comments to build up the picture.

Much more on this in the comments on many threads there – and you’ll see both sides argued as well – with poll data used to back points up (and it’s understood that poll data is of variable usefulness!).

Also on PB, a great deal of informed, polite(!) debate on the boundaries bias issue.

Cheers!

selling out your princioples, not delivering your promises, failing to stand up for the platfirm you were voted in on

a bit like the PR referendum in the 1997 labour party manifesto

but
“manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation”. Gordon Brown, February 2008.

so it’s all alright then

selling out your princioples,

some people agree with you (from another thread)

trailmonkey – Member

that wasn’t a labour govt. they were just tories with red rosettes.

pot, kettle and black are the words that come to mind

It never fails to amaze me the amount of times we here that the Tories are going to ruin thus country blah blah without any ownership of the fact that the country is already on it’s arse and how that was allowed to happen. The whole issue cannot be blamed on sub prime lending but on GROSS mismanagement of running uk plc, thanks to labour. Tj and others I have still not heard or seen what the spineless idiots of labour would have done other than to raise tax to keep social welfare spending (and their core voters) to get us out of this mess?

One other thing, if the tories wanted more than one term in power what would be the worst thing they could do, create mass unemployment and generally ruin the country? That would work well eh when it comes to voting next time?

Si

How is putting a million people out of work – half from public half from private sector good management?

These cuts are unnecessary. No other country is doing it, that vast majority of economists agree. Teh cuts are going to cause massive damage to tdh country.

The roots of the crisis are in the sub prime lending and failures by banks. With hindsight the labour government could have done more but thay would have been opposed by the opposition and the press for attempting to do so.

What the tories have seen is a once in a lifetime opportunity to destroy the state sector for ideological reasons. This includes privatisation of the NHS. couple this with the politics of jealousy over public sector pensions Their allies in the press have created a moral panic in order to garner the public opinion to allow them to get away with this and unfortunately some like you have fallen for it.

They don’t care about re-election, they care about breaking up the nhs to reward their friends and in destroying public services for ideological reasons.

What the tories have seen is a once in a lifetime opportunity to destroy the state sector for ideological reasons……..Their allies in the press have created a moral panic in order to garner the public opinion to allow them to get away with this and unfortunately some like you have fallen for it.

I don’t always agree with TJ, but this one resonates with me.

My view is also I don’t give a shit who is in power as long as they have the balls to tackle the current issues.

TJ, It sounds to me like whatever the Tories do you will disagree with them for it, because it does not fit your political ideal.

Answer me this, why would the Tories REALLY want to break the NHS? I don’t subscribe to mass political view, all the Tories sat around a table thinking, hmm how can we really upset just about everyone except a few friends by breaking the NHS and creating mass unemployment? By that thinking do you think that labour didn’t do something similar? IMO the NHS is over bloated and far too expensive and needs streamlining, what’s the issue with that? The Tories propose this sort of action and all the socialists get up in arms about it and rationalise it with some spurious political argument.

I’ll say it again, all that labour would have done is to increase the tax burden on the likes of myself to pay for the over bloated and socially skewed ideals that they have and i and others like me said ‘No thanks, you had your chance, time for someone else’

Why do the tories want to break up the NHS? To reward their friends. You don’t think this is true? You need to look at the links between the various conmpanies waiting in the wings and the tory party. Just wait until you see what will happen.

Its also just ideological. They hate the public sector simply because it is run by the state despite the fact that natural monopolies are best run by the state.

As for this

increase the tax burden on the likes of myself to pay for the over bloated and socially skewed ideals

Perhaps its that I prefer a society that is fair for all, where there is equality of opportunity, where there are good public services. Where pensioners don’t live in poverty, where there are not sink estates full of people with no hope, with low crime, with good standard of living for all. I hate the “price for everything and value of nothing” ethos of the tories.

An excellent bit of Labour bashing there Big an daft but any comment on what the lib dems are doing rather than what Labour did on ONE ISSUE?
The quote is from Browns barrister in a court case V UKIP but don’t let an inconvieninet thing like facts get in the way of you bashing labour when we are discussing whether the lib dems are sell outs….Do you write for the sun? This is the kind of well argued and thought out stuff they like 🙄

TJ, don’t pull the fair for all rubbish. It goes without saying the most needy should be helped, and inavriably they are, but i am damned if you think that everything is rosy in that little world.

fwiw i grew up on a ‘sink’ estate, as did all my family, but I wasn’t given enough on a plate that i didnt think that i needed to better myself. I do agree with the tories that WE should ALL try to help ourselves no matter the circumstances and not depend upon the goverment to help me achieve a certain lifestyle.

I was listening to the radio the other day, some woman with 4 kids in a nice enough area was moaning that she could not afford to buy her kids the toys they wanted for Christmas. She is claiming what ever benfits she is entitled too and also housing benefit, yet she still says its not enough and was bemoaning the fact. Well guess what, not EVERYONE can afford to buy the things they want, especially those people who don’t have the money, but Labour made everyone feel that it was a god given right for people to demand what they wanted and get into debt so that soceity was ‘fair’ and now we are suffering for it.

I’ll get off my box now, its a quiet monday morning, can you tell? 🙂