It was their job to say these are our immovable policies without which we cant go into coalition. They failed to set the terms to ensure that happened
That's pretty much what they did. They then got outmanouvered by a far more cunning and experienced backroom.
It is true that Clegg moved them to the right of where they were but even that didn't move them all that far right on the broader spectrum. That had more to do with the nature of the coalition.
I don’t know why you want to give Clegg so much credit and Kennedy so little.
I don't, particularly. Not do I think Clegg should have all the blame and Kennedy all the credit. Kennedy was good, but ask most voters about a lib dem leader they can name and it'll be Clegg, not Kennedy. Why? Because he took the party to aplace of real influence and notice. Then, as often happens with parties in that position, they were outplayed.
If you want to be a credible alternative, until we have PR (which will be the 12th of never) or a per vote subsidy (same date) you need traction with the voters. Moving to the centre can do that, whereupon you slowly move back to your natural position.
Labour's increase in the polls has nothing to do with Corbyn taking the party left, the feedback on him and the party make that clear. That was about out punishing the others.
Some of the projects I’ve worked on are all about replacing the low paid roles.
Any of it involve figuring out what to do with the people roboted/automated out of a job?
Government policy impacts you directly because the economy is under their control. And we don’t have a strong economy – it’s propped up by a cheap workforce living on debt and low interest rates. It’s not strong at all.
Rubbish. The government doesn't control the economy at all. They don't have control of interest rates, inflation or any of the economic derivers. The economy does well 100% because of the people working in it generating the GDP through the products and services our economy offers. All thy can control are things like business rates and corporation tax which can help influence the economy by creating the environment that is conducive for the economy to thrive.
Having a strong economy is important because without it the government doesn't have any means to generate revenue to spend on the NHS, Police etc. Public sector workers taxes are of no real value..its like if I give you £10 and you give me £2 back, I'm not £10 up, I'm just £8 down. I have no idea why public sector workers pay tax from their public sector salaries. Just pay them net of tax and take out a whole swathe of bureaucracy.
Brexit has been the nail in the coffin and I could never again vote for the party which I blame for bringing us to this point.
If Brexit has proven one thing..it was nothing to do with the conservatives...they just Brough it to a head after the political elite keeping it from us all these years..it was a tinder keg that was always going to explode eventually. And Brexit hasn't happened and might never happen...but one thing is for sure...you can put your success down to conservative policies over the year that has given you the opportunity to make the choices you've made to get yourself where you are today and been able to bring your children up in a nice and comfortable position. Do you really think Comrade Corbyn and his collection of Neo-Marxists would have created the opportunities you have been able to take advantage of? Corbyn is a bigger threat to this nation than any hard Brexit scenario..even the hardest of the hard. Business are taking sensible contingencies agains Brexit...but at the same time they are planning their flight from the UK in the event of a Corbyn Brexit. Businesses won't abandon the uK under Brexit, they will if Corbyn gets in.
MMT is nationlist isolationist smoke and and mirrors.
Really? You've just politicised the way the money system works. That demonstrates you don't understand it.
Nonsense.
Qualify it.
It's not an ideaology or policy, it's not got nationalistic attributes.
It's a description of the how the money system operates in places like the UK and USA.
Rubbish. The government doesn’t control the economy at all. They don’t have control of interest rates, inflation or any of the economic derivers
The BOE is an agent of the Government. It's owned by the Government. That fact they say it's independent means ultimately nothing.
Read your post back to yourself.
Having a strong economy is important because without it the government doesn’t have any means to generate revenue to spend on the NHS, Police etc. Public sector workers taxes are of no real value..its like if I give you £10 and you give me £2 back, I’m not £10 up, I’m just £8 down. I have no idea why public sector workers pay tax from their public sector salaries. Just pay them net of tax and take out a whole swathe of bureaucracy.
More rubbish.
Listen - the government can spend before it taxes. Tax is a way controlling inflation and taking money back out of the economy. Stop kidding yourself over the receipts and spend of our tax system. We issue our own currency.
But that's more nationalist nonsense apparently.
My guess is most people don't understand the money supply and should spend time with Richard Murphy or Stephanie Kelton.
If Brexit has proven one thing..it was nothing to do with the conservatives…
We issue our own currency.
The value of that currency does matter though. To pretend it doesn't is fine, if you don't want to buy anything made abroad… such as most drugs.
If you model your money supply as if a country is a closed system, then, yes, that is just nationalist isolationist smoke and mirrors.
The economy does well 100% because of the people working in it generating the GDP through the products and services our economy offers. All thy can control are things like business rates and corporation tax which can help influence the economy by creating the environment that is conducive for the economy to thrive.
The government also provides the roads and services, educates the young and trains people, the state tries to keeps people healthy which means they can be more productive, the state upholds law and order to provide the safe and stable environment for the economy to grow, the state saves you when things go wrong and literally puts out the fires in your business. They have a huge part to play in creating the environment in which business can grow.
Having a strong economy is important because without it the government doesn’t have any means to generate revenue to spend on the
The entire thing is circular, once it's started both sides should support and enable each other.
The BOE is an agent of the government.
Read your post back to yourself.
The BoE was given independence from the political aspect of the government to stop politicians doing stupid things for popularity. It's part of the government not the politics of it.
The Democrats in the US are starting to look at it but both parties have avoided hinging policy around it until now.
Republican's already enact it with defense spending, as in they don't concern themselves with paying for it out of tax receipts.
The BoE was given independence from the political aspect of the government to stop politicians doing stupid things for popularity. It’s part of the government not the politics of it.
What like maintaining low interest rates so the Government can politicise this and benefit from it?
Cheap borrowing is at the heart of a neoliberal capitalist society that has nowhere to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Policy_Committee
Well you can go through the minutes of the MPC and let us know how you are proving that as a conspiracy.
Well you can go through the minutes of the MPC and let us know how you are proving that as a conspiracy.
Who said it was a conspiracy?
You know you don't need to go to Wikipedia.
From the BOE's own site.
We do this (monetary policy) within a framework set by Government but free from day-to-day political influence.
So not really independent.
Do you think Q/E in 2008 was influenced by the Government or by the BOE?
Or is that not messing in day-to-day political affairs?
It also pursues the Governments intended level of growth.
So not independent then?
Labour’s increase in the polls has nothing to do with Corbyn taking the party left, the feedback on him and the party make that clear. That was about out punishing the others.
People have very short memories for something which happened only 2 years ago.
Labour's fortunes changed the day their election manifesto was leaked to the press.
Up until that point all the opinion polls showed overwhelming support for Theresa May, the Tories, we were told, would win a stunning landslide victory. There was no evidence that voters wanted to "punish" the Tories.
And why would they? The Tories had only been in power 2 years after almost 20 years of being unable to form a majority government.
What changed everything, and all the dire predictions of Labour meltdown, and ultimately, the greastest increase in Labour support since 1945, was that Labour offered something different.
Similarly Charles Kennedy offered voters an alternative to the Tories and New Labour, Nick Clegg did not. LibDem support increased impressively under Kennedy but totally collapsed under Clegg.
Don't believe opponents of radical change who claim that the only way to win elections is to do it from a non-existent "centre".
Do you think Margret Thatcher "made a pitch for the centre ground" when she was leader of the Tory Party? She was fairly successful in winning elections.
when the entire country is bankrupt.
As someone said on another thread – we need an informed electorate for democracy to work properly. If people are just going to make stuff up it will end badly – especially now communication is so fast (e.g. see Ch4 report on Leave.UK fake films of migrants)
Yeah. Anyone who doesn't see what I see is I'll informed :!
Stupid shit like this is the most divisive.
That’s pretty much what they did
err no. They didnt hence why they got their arses handed to them. They had one job. Get PR through and they would have been forgiven a lot of the other stuff. As it was they instead allowed a miserable compromise to be put on the table and set the entire thing back.
It is true that Clegg moved them to the right of where they were but even that didn’t move them all that far right on the broader spectrum
Yes he did. Which is the really damaging thing by him and Blair. They surrendered to the hard right economically and allowed them to dictate what was and wasnt normal economically. As such the entire window shifted dramatically rightwards.
Moving to the centre can do that, whereupon you slowly move back to your natural position.
Apart from the "centre" will have shifted hard right and people will be declaring that this is the normal. The problem with politics is the baseline is quicker to reset than in other fields. If you allow someone else to dominate the narrative then the baseline will shift.
Labour’s increase in the polls has nothing to do with Corbyn taking the party left, the feedback on him and the party make that clear
I am not sure it does. There was clear feedback from the previous election for example that once Milliband actually dared to push some mildly leftwing policies he started doing better it was just too little too late.
Cheap borrowing is at the heart of a neoliberal capitalist society that has nowhere to go
Did you fashion your own tin foil hat good sir? Neoliberal, nationalist, insolationalist, you're just typing long words and quoting off-centre economists views.
So the justification for voting Tory, so far, is because they are not Labour / Corbyn / Blair / Winter of Discontent?
We just need British Leyland, Scargill / Miners, and Michael Foot for a full house bingo.
So we're 5 pages in and the above still stands. But we've now had terrorist sympathiser, Marxist, how Brexit is not the Tories doing, the Lib-Dems zig-zagging left and right, and how the BOE isn't the government.
Only two people have answered the OPs question.
People have very short memories for something which happened only 2 years ago.
I remember well the moment the campaign turned - it was when Theresa May brought up "dementia tax", means testing the winter fuel allowance and ending the "triple lock" guaranteed 2.5% increase in pensions. They got punished for that.
Then Labour courted young voters. You know, the ones who thought Corbyn was someone's commie old grandad.
Similarly Charles Kennedy offered voters an alternative to the Tories and New Labour, Nick Clegg did not. LibDem support increased impressively under Kennedy but totally collapsed under Clegg.
Kennedy offered PR. That's what the lib Dems stood for in the public eye. And that was never going to fly. Don't think it ever will, either. Not unless something drastically changes.
Clegg stood for marginally more, which is partly why he got to government and Kennedy didn't. Lib Dem support collapsed undr the coalition, which was inevitable.
. Get PR through and they would have been forgiven a lot of the other stuff. As it was they instead allowed a miserable compromise to be put on the table and set the entire thing back.
That was never, ever going to happen. Not untik the Lib Dems got a majority. At which point they would see absolutely no reason to go to PR and jeopardise their future. Which is why basically no one has switched to PR.
The Lib Dems put all their demands (cards) on the table at the start and got shafted because of it. They were dumb.
The centre moves about a bit but always comes back. That's why it is the centre. Thatcher was much farther right than this lot so we are already in the way back.
Yes he did. Which is the really damaging thing by him and Blair. They surrendered to the hard right economically and allowed them to dictate
If you hadn't lopped off the part of my quote that said he, as part of the coalition did, then we'd be saying basically the same thing.
No one would describe Blair as 'right' in any sense of the word.
I am not sure it does. There was clear feedback from the previous election for example that once Milliband actually dared to push some mildly leftwing policies he started doing better it was just too little too late.
Certainly Corbyn's anti austerity played well but May's personal unlikeability and the words dementia tax, means test and end of pension guarantee did it.
Yeah right, the Tories were "punished" because they had the wrong policies. And young voters were drawn to Labour because they saw Corbyn as an old grandad.
I can see this is going nowhere - you are just going to ignore all the facts that don't suit whatever point you are trying to make.
But I'll leave you with this, since you mentioned it :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42747342
I can see this is going nowhere – you are just going to ignore all the facts that don’t suit whatever point you are trying to make.
I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Particularly if you distort what I actually say so you can refute what I didn't say.
I'm not sure you read the whole article you posted a link to like;
51% of respondents told Comres that the Conservatives had "more realistic and well thought out policies than Labour" as opposed to 31% who thought that Labour's policies were more realistic.
And despite backing Labour policies overall, 47% of respondents said they were "less likely to vote Labour" after hearing their policies than they had been before, as opposed to 34% who said the opposite.
Meanwhile 56% of respondents told Comres that they believed Jeremy Corbyn "would be a disaster as Prime Minister" as opposed to just 30% who said he "would be given a fair chance of leading the country."
Doesn't sound like the kind of feedback that would lead you to think it was going to turn the election in labour's favour, does it?
I'll leave this for you. I'll even give you the Coles notes version:
The turning point of the campaign, according to insiders, was Theresa May's U-turn on social care.
and
Labour (not Corbyn) countered Tory attack ads on Facebook with upbeat messages and celebrity endorsements. Labour's successful push to get out the youth vote was a decisive factor in some seats, although there is still some debate about the size of the surge in voting among 18 to 24-year-olds.
The whole thing:
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40237833
Only two people have answered the OPs question.
Yep and no more have answered yet. It can't be that hard to answer can it?
I have voted conservative in the past when I was younger as a "it's what my parents did " vote.
I have not in years now dispite on the face of it being a conservative target. I don't like government interference. I believe a correctly organises market is efficient. (Note correctly organised, i.e. regulated to minimise asymmetric relationships).
I would not vote conservative anymore, especially after Brexit.
I also would not vote labour. They are dishonest is there approach of better public services "we can get the rich to pay for that" but with a very low bar to be regarded as "rich". Better public services mean everyone has to pay more. Even if this mean those at the bottom get some more money back via some form of benefits it help with the phycology if everyone pay more. This is why I think lib Dems are the only party who are honest about this point.
Well, yes, they did forget the cardinal rule of don’t be the smaller partner in a coalition.
Seems to be working fine for the DUP 🙂
To be fair, the DUP are far more used to saying NO! than the Lib Dems
Not untik the Lib Dems got a majority
Of course it could have. They were in the position to do so in the coalition. To put it into perspective just look at the influence the far smaller DUP are having.
The centre moves about a bit but always comes back. That’s why it is the centre.
No it is the "centre" because its arbitrarily placed there based on the alignment of the major parties or, sometimes, just because people like to declare themselves as such since they think it makes them look balanced. The casual example of this is looking at the "centre" in the UK, USA and mainland Europe. It is in a very different position.
The only way you move it is by actually offering something to the left or right. If you chase the other party then the centre moves with you.
means test and end of pension guarantee did it.
Aside from when you look at the votes the older generation still turned out enmass for the tories. So it doesnt seem to have had quite the effect you are claiming. The "unlikeable" May got a massive increase in pro tory votes. If Labour hadnt managed to also increase their turn out it would have been a landslide.