Cleggy’s looking to distance himself from Cameron in the hope of forming a new coalition. Fuck him. He’s toast at the next election no matter what. No cabinet position and, with a bit of luck, ousted to the backbenches of his own miserable party. And well rid.
And if anything illegal happened, they’ll be referring that matter to the police … right?
Yeah, what a creep. I got the impression from somewhere the whole point of the Liberal Democrats was to provide a left-leaning alternative for people who couldn’t stand a Labour party that produced neocons like Blair and Brown. But who will provide the alternative for people who can’t stand sell-outs and hypocrites like Clegg?
Some of us who had read the Orange Book had no illusions about Clegg, but hoped the rest of the party would stop the worst of what they wanted. We now regret it.
With a choice between authoritarians like labour/conservatives/UKIP, sellouts like LibDems and the eternally silent Green party, maybe the best choice is to fight against the parliamentary system itself.
It sounds like the US where we spend tons of money on studying things that we know are a problem, but it creates a nice long delay in doing anything about it whilst saying you are doing something about it.
I think it would be sufficient to fight against first-past-the-post elections rather than the entire “parliamentary system”. Nick Clegg’s incredible failure to even attempt that is probably going to be his lasting legacy.
In Scotland, we have a proportionally-elected parliament, and the Greens are far from silent. Of course, if our referendum goes well, you won’t have to try to reform Westminster (the impossibility of which is kind of the point), you’ll just be able to move north and live in a democracy.
I believe that Westminster is beyond corrupted and is now a corrupting force on any new idealistic MP.
As for Scottish independance, I have a lot of Scottish relatives and I grew up 10 miles south of the border so I am hoping there is a good case for me to be recognised as Scottish.
I’m pushing for everyone north of the Wall.
The independent review, to be led by the intelligence and military thinktank the Royal United Services Institute
> independent
I do not think that word means what you think it means…
I’m sure that if the commission finds problems, they’ll get at least as much support as Dr David Nutt’s findings on drugs policy.
I think it would be sufficient to fight against first-past-the-post elections rather than the entire “parliamentary system”. Nick Clegg’s incredible failure to even attempt that is probably going to be his lasting legacy.
I believe Clegg had something to do with bringing about the referendum on this very subject. That at least qualifies as an attempt. nickcleggsfault that the UK electorate missed their once in a lifetime chance to ditch the first past the post system?
Well, no. AV wasn’t in any way a proportional voting system. It was just a minor change in how you calculate who gets past the post first in the event of low voter turnout. He should have held out for a referendum on proper PR or no coalition. It was his one big chance to achieve what the Liberal Democrats and their predecessor parties had made a central pillar of their policies, even a defining characteristic of what it meant to be a Liberal in the UK, for decades. And he pissed it away for a sniff of a chance to play with the big boys.
A referendum on a confusing and ultimately ineffective change predictably fell flat. As it was intended to.
For the life of me, I can’t see why the Lib Dems are siding against Scottish Independence. It would create exactly the kind of constitutional crisis that might give them another chance at electoral reform in England. Maybe they just don’t want it enough any more.
Flawed as the AV compromise was it would have been more proportional and a significant shift away from FPTP. Clegg miscalculated, clearly, in part because he trusted the Tories when they promised to not campaign against the change (they did vigorously).
On the Scottish Independence thing I suppose the fear is that without Scottish voters England will be Tory/UKIP dominated for eternity.
Clegg’s too used to doing Cameron’s bidding; he’ll never turn from their party line except for ineffectual soundbites (can you tell I’m disappointed and embarrassed I voted for that shower?).
That’s the crisis to which I refer.
Although in fact only one Labour government ever would have failed to get into power without the Scottish vote, so it’s a bit of a red herring. But if Labour were worried, they could always join the Lib Dems in a coalition to get PR.
If Scotland fails to get independence, IMO it will be a huge backward step, and the Tories will still dominate the UK with no fear of democratic reform for another generation. This will harm Labour and Lib Dem too. It’s not like if their campaign of negativity fucks up our chance to escape we’ll all suddenly get Stockholm syndrome and go back to voting for the cunts.
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