Why don't people like Nick Clegg

Did you bother reading, they needed a smaller party to make up the other 10 seats.

Some media and people talked that this could work well and looked to how some countries in Europe did it.

It wasn't something that couldn't happen or work. It was a valid option.

One that many libdems voters (and probably smaller parties were hoping for)

But Nick Clegg had more status with the Tories......

But Labour only had 258 seats. Added to the Lib Dem's 57 this only makes 315 which is short of the 326 needed. I know that Labour had the constitutional right to try to form a government but with the number of seats they had, it wasn't possible.

Working link

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election_2010

Also here

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010

There was a way to form a coalition government with Labour. This is only one news papers take on it at the time.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7691715/General-Election-2010-Gordon-Brown-appeals-to-Nick-Clegg-to-strike-deal.html

The constitutional precedent is that the current prime minister has the right to attempt to form the next government if no party secures an overall majority

Labour was poised to offer the Liberal Democrats a deal that would bring Mr Clegg’s party into a coalition government

I remember everyone's jaw dropping, when he had made a government with the conservatives rather than Labour.

Apart from anyone who could add up? I'm sure that if Labour and the Conservatives had had similar numbers of MPs and a similar proportion of the popular vote, the LibDems would have preferred to go into coalition with labour. However, that didn't happen. It would have been entirely wrong for the party which had won the most seats and largest share of the vote to have been excluded from government.

I remember everyone's jaw dropping, when he had made a government with the conservatives rather than Labour

But how could he make a government with Labour when that still wouldn't give them a majority?

I remember everyone's jaw dropping, when he had made a government with the conservatives rather than Labour.

For many many libdem voters it was like sleeping with the enemy, (including me)

Austerity wasn't a massive thing on cards, it was a Tory scare tactic.

The little money at the time after the global crash was being put into growing the economy on long term projects as well, the things like the refurbishment of schools, and building projects. Keeping as many people in employment as possible.

The coalition pulled the plug over night on so much, Businesses closed, or moved headquarter/ shut branches etc...

The effect was devastating up north.

But of course it was all labours fault

Not saying Labour hadn't made mistakes, but the way it was being handled was far better for the economy long term and keeping people employed then what the coalition did.

A coalition that wouldn't have been, if Nick Clegg hadn't gone with his ego.

Once the coalition was over, the Tories scrapped maintenance grants which used to be given to the poorest students to help them with living costs at uni.

I wonder if they would have done that earlier if not for the Lib Dems.

But the thing is Error, they didn't mitigate the bad. They kept the Tories in power to roll out an austerity agenda. They'd have had more chance to mitigate the bad, if they had only voted in favour of good or at least not too terrible stuff and not voted for the shit stuff.
It's all a bit academic now anyway. They entered coalition, they found out that the consequences of propping the Tories up in government is that people who oppose Tory style policy won't vote for you again and people who support Tory policy won't vote for you because they can just vote for actual Tories. Bit sad really.

ImperialBlether yes, because that's exactly what I said . Do you understand my post better if I replace 'power' with 'status'?

I was delighted he lost his seat. He should have been voted out last time.

I know he renegaded on uni fees and tripled them once he got into bed with the Tories.

If you remember at the time the coalition was formed there was a lot of pressure to get on with the cuts and reduce the deficit. The country was obsessed with getting rid of the deficit as quickly as possible. If he'd been 'as vocal as possible' and prevented all bills that he disagreed with he'd have been slammed for stopping the country moving forward. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. He did the best he could with the power he had.

I agree Op - I quite like him.

Im also confused about the tuition fees issue - Labour introduced tuition fees in the first instance but it's like everyone has rewritten history & forgotten this

alltouchedout You sound very naive if you think politics is now about power!

Well, why not 'power', if it was the power to actual do some good and mitigate the bad? much better to be at the table and be able to put their ideas on it, engage in discussions rather than merely deciding to support, or not, whatever the conservatives alone came up with.

I think they thought they could temper the Conservatives in a coalition and they did that's true and maybe they did - they trouble is that is something that can't be measured. What people can see is what actually happened - it is impossible to know what the Tories could have done as a minority government. For good or for bad the party is now forever associated with that nasty austerity government. What is more significant is that at that time the Lib Dems had 57 seats - now they have just 12 (and before that just nine!). That's why people don't like Nick Clegg - because the Lib Dems had been making progress and growing their party and now they are completely insignificant. Which is a shame. Personally I like him and I think his voice will be sorely missed, but at the same time I believe he is the author of his own misfortune and that makes me cross.

Seat at the table? Ahhh. So it was about power.

The LibDems only had 57 seats. I think they thought they could temper the Conservatives in a coalition and they did.

It was no coincidence that David Cameron decided to change tuition fees immediately. It was the first thing he did in the coalition and it was to put Nick Clegg in his place.

It wasn't the Lib Dems who raised tuition fees. Nick Clegg acknowledges now that free tuition wouldn't have worked - as JC will find one day, maybe.

The Conservatives had 306 seats compared to Lib Dem's 57. People who blame Nick Clegg for the tuition fees should remember that.

Personally I think he's a really intelligent and decent bloke and the only one willing to stick his neck out about the complete and utter disaster Brexit will be.

I like Nick Clegg. I agree with noblegiraffe regarding pupil premium.

He could have not gone into coalition, but agreed to support the Tories on a vote by vote basis. Then whenever the Tories proposed something at odds with what the people who had elected Lib Dem MPs wanted, he and his colleagues could have voted against it

But then the LibDems wouldn't have had a seat at the table. I think the coalition government was much better for having Clegg and Cable in it than a minority Conservative one would have been.

The Lib Dems in coalition were responsible for the introduction of Pupil Premium which has had a huge impact in the way disadvantaged pupils are dealt with at school.

As a Remainer, I really enjoyed hearing him talk about Europe. Unlike some others where it was all politics and what's in it for us, he genuinely sounded enthusiastic about the values of the EU.

He chose to go into a coalition with a party that was diametrically poles apart in values (and I could be mistaken, but I believe that the majority of lib dem voters would be more akin to ally themselves with Labour). He could have refrained from a coalition and went on an issue by issue basis. You lie with the dogs, you get fleas. Im surprised that Nick Clegg wasnt savvy enough to realise that Lib Dem voters would most likely punish them at the next election for getting into bed with the Tories. Or he did, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice to be deputy pm.

He could have not gone into coalition, but agreed to support the Tories on a vote by vote basis. Then whenever the Tories proposed something at odds with what the people who had elected Lib Dem MPs wanted, he and his colleagues could have voted against it.