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Comments
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/25/cameron-clegg-conservatives-coalition-differences
I guess he's upset because he assumed he could just stroll into Downing Street on the basis that he was opposition leader. Now that everyone's noticed how mediocre he is, the game is possibly up.
Diddums.
I'm struggling to see much difference between Clegg and Cameron and don't trust either of them. Nick is giving Dave a run for his money in the slick,smug stakes. The LibDems appalling fence-sitting, opportunistic approach to policy and campaigning is just vile - how can you make 'fairness' a central point of a campaign it's just nonsense - what does it mean anyway? How utterly predictable of Clegg with a keen eye across the polls to pronounce on whom they would be prepared to negotiate a pact with - no change there then! they just want to cosy up to the winning side - A legacy of 40-odd years trying to be a political force a never quite getting there - because apart from 'change the voting system' [to favour us] and 'fairness' what have they ever had to say? All the fuss about Clegg is basically just what? because he talked a bit on telly and seemed nice - a surprise to a lot of the country who still thought Vince Cable was LibDem leader,that is if they thought at all. Clegg won't be Prime Minister and he knows it but is having a lovely time splitting the vote - well done very grown up and responsible of you - and to imply that a hung Parliament would somehow be a LibDem victory, well that's self-deception on a Thatcherite scale and pretending to make history, to be a 'game-changer' - unfortunately someone should tell him that column inches aren't counted as votes. [btw no such thing as a balanced Parliament-that just trying to use a nice word to suggest it's fair]Coalition government - is time consuming and slow - slower than normal govt. - and stalling becomes the order of the day, which is LibDem heaven of course because they don't need to make their mind up on anything in advance. They can wheel on the Mastermind Vince to tinker with the economy btw. I fail to see how having worked for an oil company is a good credential? as an industry they make banks look positively brimful of principles and social purpose. Nothing here about Tory policies because they'll all change should they creep into power what a thought! NO TIME FOR A NOVICE or show pony or to change for change's sake, don't muck about with a vote, don't lend it to a party that won't/can't actually govern and don't vote Tory and please don't vote in a national election on local politics or vice versa in a local election.
[ Any LibDem campaigners out there please stop putting stuff thru' my letter box - there's a green recycle box on the doorstep put them straight in there and cut out the middleman - ditto Tories ]
You are aware of the title of Labour's manifesto, yes? If not, it's "A Future Fair For All".
"NO TIME FOR A NOVICE or show pony or to change for change's sake" - what, so one should always keep an incumbent leader in power, no matter how incompetent he has shown himself to be, no matter how much he is responsible for the difficult times in which we find ourselves? Yeah, let's take Zimbabwe as our lodestone, it's worked out so well for them, after all.
And in terms of ideological emptiness and shameless tacking towards whatever initiatives look popular with the press, Clegg would have a long way to go to beat New Labour.
[that's Clegg btw as a posh, public school politician- not Cameron]
Gordon caused the economic collapse did he? Funny I thought it was the banks poor practice and avarice and forgetting they were supposed to be a responsible keystone in this country - Zimbabwe comment seems a bit daft or was it part of another post that got here by mistake?
Neither Cameron nor Clegg have any real conviction about anything - except themselves and it being their job to pursue change - they are rather well paid clock-punchers you know. Neither are astute enough or have the team to read events and maintain any kind of recovery. [Nice but Dim] Lot's of rhetoric and bluster but no delivery and just superficial connection to the reality of implementing anything - Brown can steer a path out of the fiscal minefield. btw he was praised as a chancellor for the very same things he's criticised for as PM.
Clegg's in a perfect position because he'll never have to deliver on any promises as PM and history will mark him as THE rank opportunist of all time [after Disraeli perhaps] Cameron can just lie because that's what's expected of a Tory anyway and he'll say it's all for our own good as we creep back toward Maggietown and 12.5% mortgage rates and 27% VAT.
What shameless,empty, new labour initiatives have made your life so terrible? Is the actually country broken, is London horrid, is the EU trying to straighten our bananas - Or is it just that you want your turn because that's only fair?!
Vote for a smiling pretty boy front man and our own millionaire lady MP or for the fag-ends of the aristocracy if you must but it's a waste and it will be a long game that follows and far from fair but hey! we'll always have the Parkland Walk and bike lanes and 'something in our daily bread to cancel any crisis'
Banks will always be greedy shysters. The responsibility of governments - especially supposedly leftwing ones - is not to let them get away with it. Brown, on the other hand, consistently kowtowed to them and let them get away with murder, even after all their boasts of wealth-creation had collapsed into rubble.
The Zimbabwe comment refers to your claim that this is 'no time for a novice', logic which taken to its conclusion leaves one with Presidents for Life on the Mugabe model. I'm sorry, I didn't think that would be a difficult analogy to follow.
Brown was praised as chancellor (by most but not all - Vince Cable was among those who were on to him) because the smoke and mirrors of his supposed 'end to boom and bust' had yet to be exposed by a major economic collapse. Now it's clear that he was a bullshitter all along (albeit clearly less of one than that muppet Osborne, whose prescriptions for dealing with the meltdown would have had even more disastrous consequences).
And as for your belief that New Labour - a party who even changed their name to signal that they were no longer committed to the working man or anything old-fashioned like that - has principles and convictions, as compared to the opportunist other two...I'd almost find it touching if it weren't so crazy.
What New Labour initiatives have damaged my life? Well, the Underground is a mess because of public-private partnerships they forced through, I lost my job in the economic collapse they allowed, I've not been able to find another staff position because there still aren't any, and I only narrowly escaped getting shunted on to some truly horrific workhouse-style schemes because they've initiated the privatisation of Jobseeker's. That do you?
Fairness has nothing to do with this election they are all being fairly secretive about the real issues.
Fair is such an ambiguous word that its almost like nice...
And remember it is a four letter word.....
The Post offices were closed by EU order, there was nothing that any politician or MP could have done to stop it bar repealing the 1972 european communities act, to stop the closures.
All three parties know this and will not mention it for fear of losing their precarious popularity.
I am campaigning for the right of the people to choose what they want, free of party dogma and free of the party whip and the EU. We'll see what happens
If you don't like the LibLabcon you can vote for a real choice and someone who isn't afraid of tackling issues Muggins here will do that, You have nothing to lose by voting for an independent candidate because they report back to the people There's no party involved That's even fairer even if I do say so myself....
I am fed up with politicians blaming the EU for everything. You don't like it? Well get off your lazy arse, get in there and change it.
At the end of the day, you could put any politician on the telly with no captions telling us who it is or what party they are representing and it could be anyone. The only stand out candidates are the BNP and that's cos they're loons.
I'm sorry you lost your job - that hurts it's happened to me more than once. I wish you all the best in your effort to find a new position. The people running that business presumably took a decision to reduce overhead, protect share price, profit or whatever but did have other choices. An employers favoured flag of convenience is to blame the govt. when letting staff go - especially with a handy economic crisis . [ See captains of industry's ire about a 1% rise in NI for 2011 - which should not lead to massive job losses but a multi % hike in VAT will ]
The bank industry is as you say and Labour PMs and Chancellors have a tricky time securing credible co-operation from them. Brown did a good job of that but was not micro-managing the banks. Deregulation was not an invite to any bank to cut loose from responsibilities within the domestic economy in favour of a game of transnational pass-the-debt-parcel. Let's be clear if the banks had not fallen out among themselves and suspended inter-bank lending due to lack of trust then it would all still be trundling on. Gordon Brown did not cause the economic crisis. Once the collapse was upon us however Brown's interventions prevented complete meltdown. He is a serious man and finds figures and fiscal strategy far more interesting than people I suspect. Interesting how he's criticised as PM for the same traits that earnt him praise as chancellor.
There was no analogy with Mugabe just a wildly inappropriate comparison. Brown is not universally popular but he is a credible international figure and the Zimbabwe comment was an exaggeration to stretch a point.
As for the Tube - don't know where to start! I've been here over 32 years and public transport has always been abysmal. You pay, or pre-pay, for a barely adequate service. The PPP's were poorly conceived and managed but what would you have done? Let a private concern run it, strip it down hike prices and ignore infrastructure - or nationalise it? decade on decade of no re-investment made it a hell of a business to get right - even now with visible signs of money being spent the last thing they think about is customer experience.
I'm talking not just from my belief but from experience , the New Labour name change is a tired argument - but I do know that they don't target sections of the population to destabilise or destroy industry as the Tories habitually do
Cameron doesn't control any Tory policy and their economic plan will quickly revert to using high unemplyoment as a prerequisite - the only other country to use this was Chile, handy for suppression no doubt - the hawks will make it happen in Her name but they'll call it something else. Then they'll pitch us into futile, revisionist arguments in Europe.
A vote for Clegg is de facto a vote for Cameron this is how the Tories will squeeze in - they have rarely won the popular vote but stayed in for 17 years.
@nick_m
What a ridiculous thing to say - the war is a tragic, avoidable mess but I don't recall it as a New Labour policy. Sadly, I doubt the result would have been different whoever was in office.
@ Arkady
I'm sorry if you my post lacked sophistication. This is a very straight forward issue. Unless those values Liberals cite as making them special are multi-laterally adopted by all parties then they are an irrelevance and as useful as a chocoate teapot and you can 't apply them unless you form a govt.- a Ministry of Fairness would have it's work cut out.
The facts are this country has chosen not to elect a Liberal govt.in living memory. I go back as far as Thorpe and Grimond but it's been 40-odd years of lectures on PR and tellings off about fairness as a party tries to do define itself but it still hasn't and it can't. Which makes it hard to accept any notion of a Liberal Tradition what is that? -in campaign terms a mish-mash of things other parties aren't saying, a lot of coyness about actual policy delivered in 'deep and meaningless' quotes to camera 'we are fairer than them ...they are just the old parties' Except Trident - clear as a bell on that.
Was it coincidence that Nick Clegg after refusing to be drawn on comments about a Lib-Con pact or a Lib-Lab pact gets to the penultimate weekend before polling and offers his views on what he was prepared to accept or whom he would choose to form a Govt. with and that preference was a party ahead in the polls? If that isn't fence-sitting I don't know what is but Liberals have been doing it for so long they don't even see it any more. Their great achievement may be to return the Tories to power. Tell Nick he'll have to cross the floor if he wants a say in who leads the Labour party by the way and if Parliament is hung he'll need new ideas before the next election in October.
[edit: removed request for 'praise for Gordon Brown' as it is academic]
Hes the EU's henchman...
As far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned It is the Social Democratic party in disguise and the SDP were formed from Labour, Dr David Owen, and the other three members of the gang of four.
The Liberals amalgamated with them and some Liberals didn't , The Liberals that didn't; still exist They are fielding a PPC in Ipswich and a few other places checkout liberal.org.uk
The SDP are Labour in disguise Things would get worse in a Social Democratic government ( there are a few good Lib Dems but thats not enough to make policy changes)
As far as the EU is concerned it rips 45 million pounds from us every day and is thinking about doubling that to 90 million pounds
We were an oil exporting country we should be enjoying free education and hospitals and free university tuition
The money went to the EU that's why the economy is in such a sorry state because now we are not exporting anymore we can't afford it.