If you vote for the lib dems all you are doing is helping the tories.
Yes, and none of the Lib-Dems who said they were going to abolish tuition fees in Scotland and reneged on that promise as soon as Labour offered them some seats at the table after the first Scottish Parliament election are around either.
Um, what?
I went to uni during that administration and never paid a penny of tuition fees. That was a Lib Dem policy and one they negotiated as part of the Lib-Lab coalition.
What parallel universe are you typing from?
The lib-dems had not just a once in a lifetime chance but a once in a multiple generational chance to alter the course of the UK forever.
The Tories had over 6 times the MPs of the Lib Dems and outnumbered them in ministries 3-1. I don't think they had half the chance you seem to think they did. The only thing going for the coalition was that at least it represented a majority of the voting public - 59%, which was a first for any modern government.
The lib dems problem is they said at the beginning that they would not collapse the government. that means they lost all power and became lapdogs because the veto power of collapsing the government was all they had. Once the tories realised this they basically ignored the Lib Dems - and even made them do things like Cable selling off the royal mail
As a result we just got spineless enabling.
What parallel universe are you typing from?
The one where, if you started university in 1998, you paid tuition fees for your entire university career.
I, and a lot of others, voted for the Lib-Dems in 1999 specifically because they said abolishing tuition fees was a non-negotiable tenet of their manifesto.
Turns out it was very negotiable and tuition fees (or endowments or whatever it was called that month) weren't actually abolished until the SNP was in power in 2007.
Now, which universe are you typing to us from?
The Tories had over 6 times the MPs of the Lib Dems and outnumbered them in ministries 3-1. I don’t think they had half the chance you seem to think they did.
Unlike the DUP who, with 10 MPs, completely changed the shape of Brexit (and got an extra billion for NI just for shits and giggles). Their influence was undoubtedly bad but it was undeniable.
A junior partner in a coalition holds massive power over the senior partner IF it is prepared to sacrifice everything else for a single goal.
Electoral reform should have been the Lib-Dems only goal of that parliament. Instead they were offered a sniff of power and they went for it like the good career politicians they are.
I, and a lot of others, voted for the Lib-Dems in 1999 specifically because they said abolishing tuition fees was a non-negotiable tenet of their manifesto.
Much as I like beating up on the Lib Dems...manifestos are promises to do things if elected to government. The Lib Dems were never elected to government and did not have a mandate to govern. Did they promise not to join a coalition that would not reverse tuition fees?
Much as I like beating up on the Lib Dems…manifestos are promises to do things if elected to government. The Lib Dems were never elected to government and did not have a mandate to govern. Did they promise not to join a coalition that would not reverse tuition fees?
We're talking about Scotland where the government ended up being a Lab-Lib coalition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_tuition_fees_in_the_United_Kingdom#Scotland
I voted for them with the understanding that tuition fees was non-negotiable, ie, the Lib-Dems would not enter a coalition government that didn't abolish tuition fees.
I did not vote for them so that they could commission a report, replace fees with an endowment, only for the SNP to come to power 7 years later and abolish the whole lot immediately.
If they had told the truth I could have just voted SNP in the first place (although I wasn't paying attention to the SNP at the time and couldn't tell you what their policy on tuition fees was).
I have not seen a series of governments as downright dangerous as these Tories in all my days. I’d vote for anything within reason which could remove them from office.
If I thought it'd cost the Tories a seat I'd vote UKIP.
Or you could vote lib dem?
And that would be a wasted vote.
Hyndburn 2019 GE results (where I lived at the time):
https://electionresults.parliament.uk/election/2019-12-12/results/Location/Constituency/Hyndburn
Unlike the DUP who, with 10 MPs, completely changed the shape of Brexit
Because May was a minority government, unlike Cameron who wasn't. They're totally different scenarios and the DUP had influence way beyond their numbers would've normally given them, their votes literally meant all the difference . The two aren't comparable.
The one where, if you started university in 1998, you paid tuition fees for your entire university career.
Yeah that was a UK Labour policy, your own link says that.
From 2000 (the year before I started uni) tuition fees were scrapped for students in Scotland and instead the endowment was introduced. I don't know about you but I'd still rather have paid a £2-2.8k endowment on graduation (so if you drop out you're off the hook) than £3k per annum in tuition fees. I wasn't a maths student but even I can work that one out.
You were unfortunate in that you fell in between the two systems but you can't blame the libs for that. They got a hell of a better deal than what was already on offer for a lot of people in Scotland.
unlike Cameron who wasn’t.
Camerons government would have been a minority government without the lib dems.
They’re totally different scenarios and the DUP had influence way beyond their numbers would’ve normally given them, their votes literally meant all the difference .
The difference was the DUP had a single goal and didn't give a **** about blowing everything up if anything threatened that goal.
The Lib-Dems had no goal other than being in government. They gave up pretty much all their influence in order to get jobs in government. They completely abandoned the idea of electoral reform and the AV referendum was a fig leaf in order to say, 'Oh well, at least we tried'.
There is absolutely no sign they wouldn't do the exact same thing again if the opportunity arose.
From 2000 (the year before I started uni) tuition fees were scrapped for students in Scotland and instead the endowment was introduced. I don’t know about you but I’d still rather have paid a £2-2.8k endowment on graduation (so if you drop out you’re off the hook) than £3k per annum in tuition fees. I wasn’t a maths student but even I can work that one out.
You were unfortunate in that you fell in between the two systems but you can’t blame the libs for that. They got a hell of a better deal than what was already on offer for a lot of people in Scotland.
Bit better, sure. And yet the SNP came in and just abolished them altogether which begs the question, how hard were they trying?
Still, at least they didn't make the exact same mistake in 2010...
"Refusing to go into coalition would have led to a weak tory minority government that would have soon collapsed."
That's a fair point tj but it wouldn't stop me voting Lib Dem in the future.
The Lib Dems took a gamble and it didn't pay off. In the same way Corbyn's gamble with Brexit didn't pay off but it wouldn't stop me voting Labour in future either.
I wouldn't blame the current Lib Dems for it either. I don't think making big mistakes, being "spineless" or gambling is party policy, is it?
The Lib Dems took a gamble and it didn’t pay off.
That is literally the opposite of what they did.
A gamble would have been to bet the house on forcing the issue of electoral reform at the expense of everything else. The pay-off would have been guaranteeing their relevance as a party into the future (and as a happy coincidence, possibly saving the UK from Brexit and break-up). The risk would have been becoming an irrelevance (which happened anyway so they are not only risk-averse but also incompetent).
They took the safe option, that happened to involve minister salaries, and they are rightly being punished for it and should continue to be punished for it until they finally decide to come up with an honest-to-god purpose that they will pursue at the expense of everything else.
If only there were some burning issues that are being ignored by all the major parties...
The difference was the DUP had a single goal and didn’t give a **** about blowing everything up if anything threatened that goal.
And are now still behind Sinn Fein in the polls, and have been for months and months now. Seems being a junior partner in a coalition with the Tories doesn't benefit anyone who tries it.
And are now still behind Sinn Fein in the polls, and have been for months and months now. Seems being a junior partner in a coalition with the Tories doesn’t benefit anyone who tries it.
And your point would be valid if there weren't some fairly significant, shall we say, cultural issues driving voting patterns in NI.
The DUP aren't losing votes because of their arrangement with the Tories. They are losing votes because of an unstoppable demographic shift.
Trying to destroy their own parliament probably isn't helping either.
I voted for them with the understanding that tuition fees was non-negotiable, ie, the Lib-Dems would not enter a coalition government that didn’t abolish tuition fees.
Okay, but who said that?
Manifestos are wish lists for which you have a mandate if you form a government. The manifesto didn't break down the education proposals into negotiable and non-negotiable ones. How could they? They had no idea ahead of time who they'd be negotiating with or how strong they'd be.
The Lib Dems did say "A Parliament elected by fair votes also makes it very unlikely that any one party will command an overall majority. Politicians should remember that it is the people who will elect the Parliament. We will respect the voters' choice and are committed to making the Parliament work. In the likely event of no party gaining an overall majority, we will try to secure an agreement for a stable partnership government. Our strategy therefore is to set our own distinctive policies before the electorate and point out that the more people who vote for us, the better the chance that those policies will be implemented after the election. This manifesto sets out these policies..."
Lib Dems didn't win. Labour was never going to concede on tuition fees given the previous 3-4 years.
Edit: sorry, forgot the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/scotland_99/manifestos/libdems/index.htm
Halfway down this lot is a chart of stay out or rejoin polling
its now 34% stay out to 48% rejoin and there is a clear trend away from Brexit.
https://electionmaps.uk/polling
That's less graphically interesting than the Truss arrow of doom in the PM chart though.
And that's about 3pts away from where the polling was a year out from the referendum.
Point of note, the ConDem coalition was 2010. Papping on about tuition fees 13 years later is somewhat blinkered IMHO.
I genuinely don't understand this argument. Yes, they dropped the ball, but show me a political party who hasn't done so either through malice or ineptitude. People are still squealing about Blair and the Iraq War and that was twenty years ago now. Hey, remember when Thatcher stopped free milk in schools?
Mistakes have been made and yes, it'd be nice if they admitted it but, well, welcome to politics. Has Germany done apologising for WWII yet? We can't change the past, we can affect the future.
I'm so incredibly bored now of this retrospective millstone that we insist on dragging around. The 2016 referendum, Milliband eating a sandwich, Cameron allegedly shagging a pig (hopefully unrelated to the aforementioned sandwich but hey, public schools so who knows), Boris shagging everything, Short Cummings' getting in a car to test his eyes, it goes on and on and on and... Have we not worked out yet that with a handful of notable exceptions they're all just nest-feathering shitbags? What's the actual point of obsessing over something that happened one, two, three, four decades ago?
If we don't want history to repeat itself, we need to put away grudges and look forwards rather than backwards. What, if anything, are all these parties offering today?
What, if anything, are all these parties offering today?
Nothing to solve the UKs issues. thats the problem. Tories its a given but with labour we have Starmer with NO no no to EU and constitutional reform, We have Streeting wanting to privitise the NHS further, We have a promise of more austerity from Reeve.
Its hardly inspiring is it?
People are still squealing about Blair and the Iraq War and that was twenty years ago now.
200,000-1,100,000 million people died over those last 20 years, unindicted war criminals get paid millions by crypto investors, and Islamic State groups still roam the country...but otoh some IT manager from Swindon wearing velcro-secured cycling sandals is "bored" of the "squealing".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Mistakes have been made and yes, it’d be nice if they admitted it but, well, welcome to politics. Has Germany done apologising for WWII yet?
If people won't vote for the Lib-Dems because they broke an election promise, who the **** do you actually vote for?
There isn't a party that hasn't broken a commitment or manifesto pledge.
Its not so much the broken promise with the lib Dems for me - its the unapologetic enabling of a cruel tory government and the refusal to censure Carmicheal the liar that did it for me
I genuinely don’t understand this argument.
Becasue politics is a messy business of compromise and fudge, and becasue some people like to think in absolutes, that hurts their heads. This way you can pick on some abstract thing that some political party did as a reason to "hate" them
The lib dems USP was honesty and integrity. When they lost that as the coaltion and Carmicheal did then they have nothing left.
My dad was a lib dem activist for decades and his seat is a snp / lib dem marginal. He is unlikely to vote lib dem again he says.
If we don’t want history to repeat itself, we need to put away grudges and look forwards rather than backwards
If you don't want history to repeat itself you have to learn from it.
The Lib-Dems have refused to learn from history and still want to pretend they are a 'proper' political party. See 'Jo Swinson for PM' for the most recent example (I still struggle to even think of that without chuckling). Anyone who votes Lib-Dem in their current form is also refusing to learn from history.
Instead of pretending to be a 'proper' party they should take a leaf out of UKIP's book and become an irritant to the main parties.
Instead of being a 'proper' party they become a lunatic fringe group with their single burning issue being constitutional reform (with some rejoin the EU thrown in when they get bored).
People don't like to admit it but UKIP is the most successful UK party of the last 50 years in terms of achieving it's goals. If you don't want to learn from your enemies then good luck trying the same unsuccessful tactics over and over again.
The difference is that if they achieved their goal then the Lib-Dems would actually become relevant in UK politics.
How could they? They had no idea ahead of time who they’d be negotiating with or how strong they’d be.
Then they shouldn't have promised in the manifesto. And make no mistake, it was a promise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/scotland_99/manifestos/libdems/educ.htm
We will:
Widen access to further and higher education.
Attack student poverty. We will quadruple, to around £14million per year, the access funds administered by universities and colleges to tackle financial hardship. Funding would be targeted, allowing maintenance of up to £2,000 a year to be paid to mature students and those in greatest financial difficulty.
Abolish tuition fees for all Scottish students at UK universities.
Abolish 4th year tuition fees for English, Welsh and Northern Irish students at Scottish universities.
We will work at Westminster for the abolition of university tuition fees across the UK.
We oppose the concept of top-up fees for undergraduates in higher and further education.
Support the progress of the University of the Highlands and Islands towards full university status.Support high quality university research. We will provide the strongest possible support for the research base in our universities to maintain their competitive position at UK and international levels.
Reform and improve the financial support of colleges of further education. We will enhance the key role played by colleges in education and training, particularly for technological and industrial careers. We will work to improve their funding and create, along with them, a modern, prestigious apprenticeship system combining on-the-job training and study.
Use the colleges and the voluntary sector to spearhead the provision of quality adult and youth education and training. We will encourage the development of a regional strategic frame-work for further education across Scotland, the use of more New Deal funding in this field and the streamlining of quality audit arrangements.
Support disadvantaged students at college and university. We will allocate additional resources to fund the institutions which recruit such students, in recognition of the added costs of recruiting and supporting disadvantaged students with few qualifications.
Support an independent UK Pay Review Body for higher and further education. We will aim to implement its awards in full without staging. We will require a vote of the Scottish Parliament to overturn such recommendations.
Do you see the difference in wording between tuition fees and every other part of this section of the manifesto? There are ways of writing manifestos for potential junior members of government. You have red lines and you are unambiguous in your manifesto. Then you have 'nice to haves' which are worded in such a way to give yourself wiggle room in negotiations.
They left themselves no wiggle room. The didn't say, 'We oppose tuition fees' or 'We support reform of tuition fees', the only absolute in the education section was that they would abolish tuition fees.
They told us on campuses and in debates that it was a red line and they got a lot of support through that. From students, from parents of students, and literally anyone who thought your parents bank account shouldn't be a factor in your education opportunities.
To then be told literally 24 hours after the vote count that we had been lied to was an absolute slap in the face but definitely a rude awakening to the world of Lib-Dem politics for bunch of naive first time voters.
Anyway, learn from history, don't learn from history, it's up to you. Just don't come complaining to me next time the Lib-Dems screw you over for a seat at the big boy table.
Becasue politics is a messy business of compromise and fudge, and becasue some people like to think in absolutes, that hurts their heads.
Yes of course. I guess it hurts to see how inferior everyone is to you.
Shame though your sneering is undermined by the minor detail the coalition is a masterclass in not actually compromising and fudging. Its a case of some incompetents being absolutely outplayed.
Although to be fair to them there is also the question of whether the libdem MPs did use the coalition to get rid of the fees (Clegg and several others were opposed to the policy but had to go with the party voted line).
Personally I havent seen enough evidence yet the Lib dems have moved away from the orange book idiots. If I want some clueless absolutists in the free market then I would vote for Truss.
200,000-1,100,000 million people died over those last 20 years, unindicted war criminals get paid millions by crypto investors, and Islamic State groups still roam the country…but otoh some IT manager from Swindon wearing velcro-secured cycling sandals is “bored” of the “squealing”.
I'm deeply offended that you think I'm a Southerner.
Point was, as I said, it was twenty years ago. If you think Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes then go for it. But for all their other failings, judging a party today over something their predecessors did two decades ago is foolish. It's a distraction. TJ said his dad is unlikely to vote for the LDs ever again; I understand that stance but again, it's daft. Parties change, people change, the only thing consistent in politics is the colour of the rosette.
It's (highly unlikely but) entirely possible that the next Tory leader might not be a public school throwback millionaire and instead be someone who actually has the country's best interests at heart. I'd vote for that.
Lib Dems have not changed back - Carmicheal is still in post and they have never apologised for the disaster of the coalition. So they still do not have their previous USP of being honest and trustworthy.
they have never apologised for the disaster of the coalition
Two things here.
1) Has any politician or political party ever apologised for anything ever? They probably have but I can't bring any examples to mind offhand.
2) Would it make a difference to you if they did?
Depends on the apology really.
If it was "sorry we upset you" then nah.
If it is sorry this happened and we have got these steps to stop it in future then more optimistic.
There are ways of writing manifestos for potential junior members of government. You have red lines and you are unambiguous in your manifesto. Then you have ‘nice to haves’ which are worded in such a way to give yourself wiggle room in negotiations.
I suppose it is possible to write a manifesto that spells out what things you would and wouldn't compromise on in coalition. But the Lib Dems didn't that year, and I don't remember ever having seen another one. They might exist - but fundamentally a manifesto is "if we were elected, then we would do this and have a mandate to do this".
Obviously none of us know what you were told in person. Maybe the Lib Dem activist went further than was in the manifesto. Quite possibly it was a bad compromise.
the only absolute in the education section was that they would abolish tuition fees.
That's not true. Right above it, it also says "We will quadruple, to around £14million per year, the access funds administered by universities and colleges to tackle financial hardship".
judging a party today over something their predecessors did two decades ago is foolish
Don't make me go Godwin...
I suppose it is possible to write a manifesto that spells out what things you would and wouldn’t compromise on in coalition.
It's not just possible, it's how it's done. Do you think these things get scrawled on the back of a fag packet and sent to the printers?
The exact wording is debated, revised, and finalised umpteen times with input from all over for months. The wording on the pledges is crucial with absolutes (like 'We will abolish...' ) seen as red lines and parts written in language that can be interpreted differently ('We support...', 'We oppose...', 'We will work towards...') seen as being optional nice-to-haves.
If you look at countries where all parties could conceivably make up part of the government it is crucial to know what they will absolutely not do and what they absolutely will do (what they absolutely will not do is generally seen as more important).
If you're used to FPTP then this probably seems strange, given that smaller parties will generally never get anywhere near government and the winning party normally has an absolute majority so has the votes to do anything on it's manifesto, or can just ignore the manifesto because everyone knows all politicians lie anyway and who the hell else are they going to vote for?
In functioning democracies, crossing your own red line results in a severe spanking in the next election and for many elections to come if the party doesn't acknowledge and fix their mistake.
I think all these, 'Guys, it was a long time ago, can't we just forget it and move on...' arguments are happening because most contributors on this thread have never actually lived in a functioning democracy.
That’s not true. Right above it, it also says “We will quadruple, to around £14million per year, the access funds administered by universities and colleges to tackle financial hardship”.
Right you are. And given it's directly above the other two, it's at least as firm a commitment as abolishing tuition fees was.
Did it happen, or was that also tossed on the bonfire of commitments?
I think we have irreconcilable understandings of what a manifesto is. I have always understood a manifesto to be the slate of actions the party would take if elected to government. You seem to be treating manifestos as a document containing a scaleable array of commitments depending on the exact phrasing and how strong the vote is and what kind of coalition deal can be struck.
The facts that the 1999 Scottish Lib Dem manifesto was the one of the first wave of manifestos under a PR regime, and that the manifesto simply doesn't contain any of those gradations speak for themselves.
If you’re used to FPTP then this probably seems strange...most contributors on this thread have never actually lived in a functioning democracy
An odd bit of snark. But if we are willy-waving, I've lived in a bunch of places, from an absolute monarchy to a psephologist's wet dream. Most relevantly, in 1999, I was voting in that exact election in Scotland...
Anyway, I sense we have gone past the extent of useful dialogue, so I will end it there. HAND.
and that the manifesto simply doesn’t contain any of those gradations speak for themselves.
It quite clearly does. I posted a link to the manifesto. I quoted the relevant parts. I made the specific parts I was referring to bold. I'm really not sure what else I can do if you are simply going to refuse to see what I am putting right in front of your eyes.
Are you saying the phrasing was irrelevant? They just picked random words to use based on artistic merit?
Anyway, I sense we have gone past the extent of useful dialogue, so I will end it there. HAND.
Congratulations on gracefully exiting the discussion without addressing the points and managing to do a bit of self-soothing for your ego at the same time.
I've always interpreted a manifesto as a plan for govt assuming elected as majority party, not a set of hopes and demands for joining a coalition. Obviously you hope to see some of it get there in the case of a coalition partner, but anyone expecting all of the "we will" to make it in there is pretty delusional. You might as well criticise Labour for not implementing their manifesto either after they lost!
I’ve always interpreted a manifesto as
I’ve always interpreted a manifesto as a sales pitch, a bit like a CV. Its one purpose is to gain votes. To expect any party to definitely, absolutely deliver on any of it is hopelessly naive IMHO. Might as well write it down the side of a bus.
I have no great love or loyalty for any particular political party, but specifically giving the LDs a kicking over one ****-up years ago is surely short-sighted. It's hardly like they're one bad egg amongst a sea of saints now, is it. The Tories have been systematically setting fire to the country for years, up to and including brexit and beyond, yet some folk are still clamouring "yes but tuition fees."
I’ve always interpreted a manifesto as a plan for govt assuming elected as majority party, not a set of hopes and demands for joining a coalition. Obviously you hope to see some of it get there in the case of a coalition partner, but anyone expecting all of the “we will” to make it in there is pretty delusional. You might as well criticise Labour for not implementing their manifesto either after they lost!
Like I said, that's an attitude that comes from being so used to FPTP that small parties actually having to be prepared to put their manifesto policies into practice is a completely alien concept.
In functioning democracies, all the small parties have to be prepared to go into government. The manifesto is not just a collection of random words that don't have to have any basis in reality.
In addition to the massive democratic deficit caused by FPTP, it absolves all the parties of any responsibility for their manifestos. Small parties are never going to get in power (or almost never) so they can say whatever they like and the two major parties only have to appeal to a few hundred thousand swing voters so they can put whatever the hell they like in the manifesto. So long as they can keep a tiny minority of the population happy they really don't give a shit.
