From Rev Tony Buglass

Sunday, 9 May 2010

Clegg’s argument for going that way first is that Cameron got more votes than anyone else. That may be true, but more people voted against the Tories than voted for them. The principal argument against Labour seems to have been that folk don’t like Gordon. We’re not electing a President! If Nick goes with the Tories, he’ll get it in the neck from his own party. If he goes with Labour, he’ll get it in the neck from some of his own party. He’s got a better chance with Labour than with the Tories, and we’d have a much better government.

Vince Cable for Chancellor?

From Gideon Foster

Monday, 10 May 2010

"More people voted against the Tories than voted for them." Surely then by the same measure an even greater number of people voted against Labour than voted for them.

Nick Clegg is doing what he considers the right thing by talking primarily to the party who got the largest number of seats.

With all the recent sleaze in politics then maybe such fairness should be commended?

As for Vince Cable, I have lost count of the number of conversations I have had with people over the last few years about how the army of amateur property developers and easy credit would end in tears. If he was the only MP who could see what a lot of ordinary people could see then it doesn’t say a lot about the rest and the government in charge does it ?

From N Yorke

Monday, 10 May 2010

Can I strongly suggest you take a look at the previous discussion on this very subject.

"…the Labour Party is our rival, the Conservative Party is our enemy"

Nader Fekri made his views very clear at the time - he does not support the Tories in any manner. I am interested to know his and his colleagues current views.

From Andrew Hall

Monday, 10 May 2010

"…the Labour Party is our rival, the Conservative Party is our enemy"

Wow! I have to admit that I missed this near suicidal comment from Nader Fekri.

It encapsulates everything that Nick Clegg is trying to get away from. Nick Clegg is trying to escape from the utterly immature approach of the other parties where “everything the other lot do is bad, and everything that we do is good”. For one of his would-be (and thankfully failed) MPs to make such a crass comment only serves to illustrate that such ‘politicians’ are far better placed in concerning themselves about litter bins, dog poo, parking regulations and other such local and ultimately inconsequential issues.

As Clegg himself says, we have an opportunity for real change, maybe the last chance for a generation. But such change must be based on conciliation and compromise, and not on confrontation. Nader Fekri - you and your ilk are the weakest link. Goodbye!

From Jacob G

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

You really must keep up Andrew. Wasn’t it Nick Clegg that described allies of Cameron as ‘nutters’? (A term for which he rightly, later apologised for). Didn’t he also say that there was “a gulf of values between myself and David Cameron”? Isn’t he also now talking to Labour - trying to get the ‘best deal’? Clegg is nothing but a sock-puppet, looking for a hand that fits in order to animate his slippery political position.

From Andrew Hall

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Jacob, my concern is really based on a would-be politician using the word ‘enemy’ to describe a party whose principles differ slightly from his own.

I have read and re-read the three main parties’ manifestos, and nowhere can I see anything to justify anyone calling any other party an ‘enemy’. In fact sometimes, you have to check the front cover of each manifesto just to make sure you know who’s it is. There’s nothing radical there. In fact it’s all pretty anodyne.

And just who is this ‘enemy’? Is it one man, Cameron? Is it the (at the time of writing) the shadow cabinet? Is it paid up members of the Conservative Party? Is it the 10,683,787 members of the public who voted for the Conservatives?

If he has done nothing else, Clegg has made us all think about a more mature approach to politics, one in which concensus rather than confrontation is the keyword.

If politicians really had the welfare of the country at heart, and were prepared to put aside petty (and they really are petty - just read the manifestos!!) differences, why could we not have a Lab-Con pact or even a Lib-Lab-Con pact?

Whatever the case, something, as this election has lucidly proven, needs to be done. I suggest that using words such as ‘enemy’ divides rather than heals, and has no place in modern politics.

From S Lawson

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Seeing the Tories and the Lib Dems on TV tonight I was reminded of the closing words of Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’: "…already it was impossible to say which was which."

From Susan Press

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

So there you have it. The Lib Dems exposed as Tories in disguise. We always knew that in the Labour Party. How will "socialist" Nader Frekri explain himself now? Is he going to defect? I know thousands who voted Lib dem out of disaffection will be profoundly disgusted. It is up to Labour locally and nationally to fight back. I promise we will

From Andrew Hall

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Quite, Sue, although like the word ‘enemy’ I’m not sure about your equally bellicose ‘fight back’. Why all these references to hostility and antagonism?

The outcome of the election is actually pretty good for old Labour. It gives the party time to reflect, regroup and hopefully come up with something different, something radical and something positive.

The French have a phrase for it: "reculer pour mieux sauter" - step back a bit so as to be able to jump forward better. The current situation is not a problem for Labour, it’s an opportunity.

From Tim M

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Iraq, ID cards, student fees, database state, academy schools - this is the Labour Party. I voted Lib Dem and I’m not disappointed that they may actually have some influence on policy. When such big hitters as Blunket and Reid come out to decry the 25% of us who voted for a genuinely progressive party, they put their true cards on the table. Let’s hope they go away, lick their wounds and learn a few lessons.

From Sutti N

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

I really think this might be the best outcome Labour could have had. It’s not the best the country could have had.

Labour have now got time to regroup, refresh and fight for the country. What a master stroke putting Clegg as deputy. The Tories have already started to fight on the inside and when they get the knives out Clegg is in the only job to save Cameron’s skin. Do the Tories really want Clegg as PM?

I have voted Liberals for the last 20 odd years, but will find it difficult to vote that way again, a time to refresh and rethink.

From Andy M

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Did anyone else see our new MP on the local news last night? Something of the rabbit caught in the headlights look, babbling about change and saying most people in Calder Valley wanted a Tory government… errr no, they didn’t. Do the maths! …but I’m sure we’ll get another chance soon enough.

From Paul D

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

I also voted Lib Dem for the first and last time. Shame as the local party will take a decade to get over Clegg’s decision, but I’m over it already. Given Clegg’s choice it clearly makes every election from now on a two horse race. Vote Lib Dem and get Tories, or vote Labour and don’t. Hmmm… so this is the new three party politics. Clearly his actual plan is to destroy the Lib Dems in the north and Scotland, ensure a two party system, keep the Greens away from parliament for ever, join the Conservative Party and then take a peerage in an unelected second chamber. Labour MPs must be trying very hard not to laugh. His own party members might be less amused.

From Graham Barker

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

It’s worth welcoming the Cameron/Clegg alliance partly because it’s new and different, but mainly because we need as much consensus as we can get given the economic mire we’re in.

But unless the relationship works remarkably well, there’s likely to be another election not far away. It’ll come as soon as the Tories feel strong enough to ditch the LibDems and go it alone, and before Labour become re-electable. And in that next election, who will vote LibDem, and why? The LibDems could be looking at one good year, followed by oblivion and a return to an essentially two-party system.

If we’re going to have electoral reform, we need it very quickly.

From Gideon Foster

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Andy, if you do the maths you will see that 60.6% of people who voted in the Calder Valley did not want a Tory government. However, 73% did not want Labour and ironically 74.8% did not want Liberal Democrat! The problem with spin is you end up going in circles back to where you started!

This leads us to the 32.7% of people who did not vote at all. Presumably they wanted no government whatsoever?

From Susan Press

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Tim, can you please explain what is "genuinely progressive" exactly about an immediate £6billion, more in Govt cuts thanks to the Libservatives, a cap on no-EU immigration and no commitment to PR. Oh, yes, and the abandonment of any commitment to scrap tuition fees. Or scrap Trident.

Can you also please explain how 10 days ago Nick Clegg was diametrically opposed to Cameron and now has abandoned any pretence at anything other than a burning desire to get his grubby little hands under the table in Number 10.

I utterly agree this was the best case scenario for Labour. It will also, in the long-term, be the death of the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems must be very proud to be in Government with the bunch who all voted for the Iraq war. Since you mentioned it, 180 or so Labour MPs were opposed. Thankfully, most of them now make up the Opposition. An Oposition which has five times as many MPs as the Orange Tories. We will return. Soon.

From Tim M

Thursday, 13 May 2010

I’m not suggesting that all the government’s policies will be progressive - clearly many aren’t. However, I struggle to understand what has been progressive about the outgoing administration - no electoral reform, ID cards, the desperate attempts to wriggle out of the European Court’s ruling on the illegal DNA database, the Contact Point Database, the frightening attempts to monitor our email and web use, the use of National Insurance to increase tax, rather than than income tax, student tuition fees, SATS, School league tables, detention without trial, rendition, complicity in torture, Trident, centralising planning controls, big words but little action on climate change... hey the list goes on.

It’s even the little things like the treatment of the Chagos Islanders. I won’t deny that Labour ushered in important changes - Human Rights Act, (belated) Freedom of Information, civil partnerships. The test of course for the new government will be in whether the fine words translate into action, and whether the old guard really have changed. But I’m happy to give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see if consensus politics can work in Britain.

From Paul Brannigan

Thursday, 13 May 2010

It’s not who is in power, it is what they do in power.

Time will bring us a verdict either way.

From Andy M

Thursday, 13 May 2010

True enough Gideon but but the majority of people still didn’t vote Tory which is what he claimed.

I think the biggest vote was ‘not Steph Booth’!

From Kate Sweeny

Thursday, 13 May 2010

Like many others, I’m now wondering how left-leaning Lib Dems are feeling at the sight of Clegg cosying up to call-me-Dave.

We Greens took a hammering from tactical voting in the election (except for Brighton, and even there I suspect Caroline Lucas’s majority was reduced). We’re delighted to have our first Green MP, but using FPTP we’d need 93 million votes before we could form a government. Yeah, don’t hold your breath!

Up to four days ago we were being told that PR/electoral reform was "in the Lib Dems’ DNA". Turns out that this wasn’t true, and it now seems that our undemocratic voting system is with us for the foreseeable future. I’ve been in favour of PR since 1974 (a lot longer than I’ve been in the Green Party) and I’m outraged at the way Clegg has thrown away this opportunity.

I wonder what our local Lib Dems think?

From Susan Press

Friday, 14 May 2010

I think anyone who saw Simon "left wing" Hughes on Question Time will agree his weasel words were an absolute disgrace.

Trident is being renewed. £6billion of cuts immediately.
Caps on immigration. Not PR but an AV system. Not Concessions but utter capitulation.

What was most astonishing was the news he and his new pals have "agreed" there will not be an election until 2015. Let us hope the electorate give the Liberal Democrats the kicking of their lives. I feel sorry for people like the bewlidered youngsters in the QT audience who can’t understand how they voted Lib dem and ended up with a Tory Government. They didn’t give a damn about their principles when presented with the prospect of power. Which is why they have ditched most of the reasons people voted for them in the first place.

I believe over 5,000 people have joined the Labour Party in the past few days. Expect that trickle to become a mass exodus from the betrayers by the betrayed. Coming to join us Nader???

From Mick Piggott

Friday, 14 May 2010

What Now?

Tony Buglass says, “The principal argument against Labour seems to be that folk don’t like Gordon.” No, Tony, that’s not it. The main gripe most of us share is, surely, that ‘New Labour’ has the same policy for dealing with the economic crisis as the other two main parties: 'Make the people pay.'

Andrew Hall, in criticising Nader Fekri, wants ‘real change’ (whatever that is) but says it “must be based on conciliation and compromise”. But how can that be? The very rich are to be allowed to keep their enormous wealth. The rest of us are going to have our lives impoverished, our public services cut, we’ll probably have increased costs imposed by higher VAT and our freedoms further curtailed to pay for a crisis not of our making. It is the gambling of very wealthy bankers that caused the crisis; the public bailed them out; the bankers continue to pay themselves huge bonuses; the rest of us will pay for it all. How can we compromise with such robbery?

Conciliation? Compromise? How?

Andrew asks, who is the enemy? Is it one man, Cameron? The cabinet? Paid up members of the Conservative party? Well, they all certainly share the blame, because they are all promoting the interests of the capitalist bankers (see above). An old-fashioned phrase will do: the enemy is the ruling class.

Andrew wonders, Why all these references to hostility and antagonism? I suggest he ponders upon the hostility and antagonism of the ruling class and their unreformed Conservative party towards the rest of us, and what they have in store for us, to make us pay for their rotten crisis.

Often, at this point, people will start squealing on about “the politics of class hatred”. But I wouldn’t give a damn what the ruling class do, if they would leave the rest of us be, but they don’t: they screw us for every penny they can get, yes, they “grind the faces of the poor”, and if anything, the hatred starts with them, because they fear us when we resist giving in to their demands, they resent us, and the hatred starts there. It’s them and us, always has been (for centuries, anyway), and it always will be, until we move to a better system.

So, Andrew Hall and Graham Barker, we do not need as much consensus as we can get, if the consensus is imposed by a political elite representing the ruling class and especially the bankers, when that so-called ‘consensus’ means that we ordinary people are to be impoverished, to a greater or lesser degree, and the rich will remain very wealthy indeed.

By the way, the richest 1,000 of the UK population own more personal wealth than the UK national debt - twice as much, apparently. In other words, a 50% tax on the 1,000 richest would raise enough dough to pay off the national debt. Knowing that, to believe that the poorest in society - the rest of us - should pay off a debt that was incurred by a bunch of corrupt, wealthy bankers doesn’t seem too bright to me.

I know that many people in this valley voted for the Lib Dems because they wanted to keep the Tories at bay. How bitter they must be, to see the Lib Dem leadership helping the Tories into power! Not to mention the total abandonment of the Lib Dems’ much-trumpeted political platform (Trident etc). Most of them would also have been disgusted at the ‘New Labour’ shenanigans that imposed an unwanted candidate on us in the Calder Valley and deprived us of the best candidate. And most of those people would be decent, progressive people trying to pick the best from a rather bad bunch.

The Labour Government did some good things but the record so far as the bad things goes, as we are reminded by the semi-anonymous Tim M, is appalling. ‘New Labour’ has been a disaster for most of the British population; the Lib Dems have now betrayed with breathtaking speed and cynicism; where does that leave progressive ideas, and progressive people, especially on the Left? Looks like it’s back to the drawing board. We do have the Greens, of course. Would a united front of progressives, the Left and the Greens be possible - a Green-Left coalition?

And by the way, don’t be afraid of this word: socialism

From Andy M

Saturday, 15 May 2010

“New Labour has been a disaster for most of the British population.”

Really Mick? A disaster? For most of the population? I think that’s rather over-cooking it somewhat!

From Jason Elliott

Saturday, 15 May 2010

Frankly, some of the bile and hatred in the comments on here are quite surpising considering the total mess that every single political party accepts that we are in, and the deep cuts that all of them promised would follow this election.

Surely tribal differences can be put to one side for a while as we see what happens in this completely unprecedented (peacetime) situation. I believe that Paul Brannigan is quite right when he observes that it’s not who is in power, it is what they do in power.

The words of Martin Luther King come to mind, "We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now."

Come on people; isn’t it time we beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks?

From Andrew Hall

Saturday, 15 May 2010

Jason, you put it far better than I could.

What we have now is not the outcome that anyone wanted. But we have it. That’s it. Probably for the next five years. Period. Get used to it folks and contribute rather than denigrate. Vitriol, hatred and bile is so self-destroying.

Sue, I’m not sure you understand the current voting system. You say "I feel sorry for people like the bewildered youngsters in the QT audience who can’t understand how they voted Lib dem and ended up with a Tory Government". Could it possibly be that the Lib Dems didn’t get enough votes to form their own government? Did the ‘bewildered youngsters’ really thimk they would? And as it is, don’t the Lib Dems now have some influence on policy rather than (as is usual for that party) none at all?

From Paul Clarke

Sunday, 16 May 2010

Unlike Jason I don’t think this thread has been full of bile just honest opinion expressed on the whole with some insight.

So I can’t decide if quoting Dr King in this context is merely politically naive or just plain daft.

From Tom Standfield

Sunday, 16 May 2010

I am not at all surprised that people have been voicing their anger and strong opinions on this thread. To those of us who remember the last Tory Government, we look on in disbelief to see that some of those very people are once again running/ruining the country. How can anyone believe that the economy should be in the hands of poshboy George Osbourne? Not only does he not inspire confidence in his ability or intelligence, would he ever have empathy for those who are going to suffer because of his cuts? Cuts which risk spiralling the country into depression.

It could all have been so different. As Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper wrote in the Guardian last week, a golden opportunity for democracy and the left was missed when Labour and Lib Dems abandoned attempts to form a Rainbow Alliance.

She continued, “Labour’s rightward drift meant the recent Lib Dem manifesto was markedly to the left on a range of issues, including taxation, the renewal of Trident, immigration and Heathrow expansion. Plus, any "rainbow alliance" would have been dependent on the votes of Scottish and Welsh nationalists and the one Green MP, all of whom have put forward social democratic policies that appeal to many former Labour voters… The introduction of a fairer voting system would have needed to be the basis of any Lib-Lab arrangement. This would have broken the stranglehold of floating voters in Middle England marginals over the political centre of gravity, and would have rewarded Labour for mobilising support in its working-class heartland seats. There was every chance that Labour’s own policy would be drawn to the left as a consequence. And the green and radical left could have developed a stronger voice of its own.”

From Rev Tony Buglass

Sunday, 16 May 2010

I don’t think Jason is either naive or daft, but realistic. Yes, a lot of us are angry because the party we wanted permanently consigned to the outer darkness is back in power, and that is because they have been helped by those for whom some of us voted. Very frustrating - especially when it was in part because the Labour Party gave us a candidate we didn’t want. How many of Hilary’s votes would have gone to Janet or Susan, had they been allowed to stand?

So Cameron needed Clegg’s support to form a government. Well, Clegg was doomed to get it in the neck whichever way he jumped. Go with the Tories, and he’s gone over to the Dark Side; go with Labour, and he’s shoring up Gordon Brown (and whatever you say, Mick, I’ve noted a lot of anti-government stuff over the last few months has actually been anti-Gordon stuff). He couldn’t win. Now, if he had gone with Labour, he’d still have been part of a minority government - even with the other small parties, they didn’t really have enough to keep the Tories at bay. Going with the Tories gave the hope of a stable government, and the chance of getting some of the things they wanted - like voting reform. No-brainer, really, even if it is one I don’t like, and which will make me unwilling to trust LibDems in future.

So, we are where we are, as Jason said. Let’s wait and see. It certainly won’t be anything Labour supporters would have chosen, but that was going to be the case anyway, because the British people voted that way. Bless 'em. For my part, I’ll be praying for them. I reckon they’ll need all the help they can get. And so will we.

See also:

Calder Valley Election Forum

HebWeb Forum: Cameron’s Tories: not liberal, not progressive, and not fit for government? (October 2009)