so, why is a con-lib thing so bad??

Don't presume anything about my political beliefs please. And yes, GB fails every test of integrity there is - this election campagin was a classic example. Today's announcement, impeccably timed to scupper the Tory/Lib Dem talks was another.

I'll start to worry about him lying about Tory policies (which they are capable of doing all by themselves incidentally) the day the Tories support a compassionate policy like the minimum wage.

thetoriesaretoast - to me that's conviction, and I've heard quite a few speeches like it from British politicians. I don't think conviction is in short supply.

Integrity is not lying about your opponents' policies - things like that. Brown fails on that count.

No, the minimum wage is not enough but it's a step in the right direction, and one that Labour met alot ofresistance to. I presume that you didn't support it so don't understand why, when it's held up as an example of Labour achievement you claim that it's not enough. Obviously the example of that little girl is heartbreaking but under the Tories she wouldn't even have had the safety net of the minimum wage. Labour don't claim to have eradicated poverty but at least it's part of their agenda.

Actually, minimum wage isn't an intervention into individual lives anyway - it's regulation of business.

I think the two are fairly different.

The type of state intervention I'm talking about is the constant social engineering and endless Govt targets.

Clearly the minimum wage isn't nearly enough if that's the speech I'm thinking of (can't watching YouTube on my connection). Did he really only just realise when that young girl talked about her mum?

Minimum wage, Gaelic. He has done it already. And if that's state intervention then I'll vote for it every time.

The problem is Labour's been in power for 13 years. If he cared that much he'd have done it already.

Vesela, the Citizens UK speech focused on his commitment to equality and to improving conditions for the low paid, something he's fought for since student days. To me that's integrity, as is the fact that he made the unsung heroes of mass movements the focus of his speech rather than himself. I can't remember when I last heard a speech like that from a British politician.

Agreed vesela. I think the Lib Dems would be well advised not to let PR be a sticking point just now. Make a coalition work and they will make their point in spades. Let the talks break down over the issue of PR and they damage the cause straight away.

Hope you're listening Lib Dem HQ!

ok, thanks

Conviction and integrity aren't the same thing, though. Brown has conviction - I wouldn't deny that. He certainly believes in what he does. However, he is prepared to act without integrity in Labour's interest (or in the interest of his clique within Labour).

I think the bit at the bottom that shows the movement of the parties is important too Prolesworth.

Lib Dems and the Tories have moved around the same general area they're in now, sometimes coming fairly close together.

Labour have completely moved from their fairly liberal socialist postion in the lower left quadrent up to and authoritarian right-of-centre postion and moved higher and higher over time.

In 2008 the Tories and Lib Dems were quite close, I can imagine them finding things they can compromise on given that was only 2 years ago and the same people will be involved. But proportional representation does seem to be a sticking point (and should be, as one of the main Lib Dem principles they'd be selling out not to get some kind of committment to it)

I'd actually like to see the Lib Dems quite a bit further down the scale towards libertarian like the Green Party are on it.

Okay, Gaelic, I don't expect you to agree with Brown's policies but I defy you to watch his speech to Citizens UK and not be convinced of his integrity.

HumphreyCobbler, left and right wing are to do with economics?

Oh my god, I know absolutely nothing about politics.

Any chance of that in a tiny, easily understood nutshell?

Me too thisisyesterday!! I agree the difference is slight. I guess I'm hoping a Con/Lib Dem coalition might help the Tories on their way to being a truly modern and progressive party. Labour seems to be beyond hope - at least until they get rid of that odious man.

Someone recently wrote that Labour and Lib Dems had much in common but the intrinsic difference in their approach was that Labour was about equality and the LibDems about freedom. I think that's fair comment.

yes

that made me laugh

"Less than 36% wanted a Labour government in 2005. I don't recall much angst in the Labour camp about their own lack of mandate back then."

It's true that Labour and Lib Dem cultures are poles apart. They have many of the same aims, but Labour has a prescriptive approach that the Lib Dems don't have. They also have what Clegg describes as a "power-hoarding" approach, whereas the Lib Dems believe in decentralisation and devolving power. Labour are happy to co-opt business and use it to provide services regardless of whether this involves the creation of a monopoly: the Liberals have always been very anti-monopoly.

Churchill said it best in his speech about socialism vs. liberalism (when he was still a Liberal). Soon after I joined the LDs I heard Simon Hughes quoting from it at a campaign rally.

"Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is not only a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle... Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty....Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference....Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly."

He was talking about a rather different Labour in 1908, obviously, but a lot of the differences still stand.

I think the blurb that accompanies the diagram demonstrates quite nicely that the Labour party has moved towards being more authoritarian and the Tories are moving towards being more libertarian.