to think that Nick Clegg is deluding himself about his party ever being taken seriously ever again?

[macthecatsmum]

Saw him on the news at the conference. Really? Is it just me or has he totally shot himself and his party in the foot by his rolling over to the Conservatives?

On tuition fees and this 'massive debt'...
Firstly even the IFS came out a year ago and said the new system was much fairer to 29% of students (mostly from poorer backgrounds) than under the old system...

Also can I ask how many of you were presented with a bill for £200k from the tax man as soon as you started work...what no one...why not....because tax is taken as you earn ...not as a lump sum...same as with the fees...its a graduate tax just the same as the NUS campaigned for .

Most students working out side of london and the big firms will find that they will be working for substantially less than the £21k threshold (which is index linked by the way) so will probably not be paying back anything. Most students in the west midlands and Yorkshire start work on a salary of between £15-£19k ...so under labours system they would be paying from a year after graduating.

Also you may or may not know that Labours £15k threshold was introduced in 2006 and stayed at that until they decided they would raise it in 2011......this didnt happen when the coalition happened...what did happen however is that from july 2012 the threshold for students who graduated under the old Labour sytem went up..as it dis this July...and will do next all the way up to 2015....nit stationary for years like under labour....so we are helping students who have already graduated...making payments smaller under the new...yet we get kicked.

@ tobiasfunke

You fundamentally miss the point of what a liberal party is about...its not about left or right ...its about what is the best idea that fits in with a liberal ideal....if that happens to be a left leaning cloth then fine we will take it and cut it to our shape....we have not suckled of the breast of labour...we have some of the same ideals but not the need to control people like they do..We do not have or treat people as 'Our kind'...there have been times while out canvasing Ive been told by labour party workers to clear off as these are 'Our people'....

DH was saying something similar to the OP today. I asked;

What would you have done differently?

After the election in 2010, there weren't the votes to form a Lib-Lab coalition. Plus everyone was in a panic about the financial crisis and needing a strong government etc, have you forgotten?

Around 75% of the country voted for parties that didn't want to abolish tuition fees.
If 75% of the country had voted for the party that did want to abolish tuition fees, then we wouldn't have tuition fees today.
I'm not sure this can be pinned on NC being .

As to Labour not been responsible for the crisis (which is the usual mantra when people want labour back)...let me ask you this

I assume most of you have kids...how many of you would leave infants and young children in a room with a ball full of chocolates....And then expect the kids to be behaving and without a face covered in brown messy stuff when you return.

Well that what labour did...Lite touch regulations...means we will leave you in a room with all the chocolate you desire...and we expect you to behave...guess what they didnt...banking crisis....billions used to shore up the banks...massive cuts to bring down the deficit etc etc.

I get that but you can't really disagree can you that in areas where you are courting the more left/right leaning voters your party chooses to emphasis its ideas that fit that area .
To then turn round to those more leftleaning voters and say actually you misunderstood what Liberal is about is more than a bit disingenuous because the picture they painted was of a party that fitted into a left or right of centre position even if they didn't use those words. Therefore those voters have every right to feel that they have been duped.

tobiasfunke

And other parties dont!

All political groups will try and target the group/groups who they feel will fit as close to the base ideals as possible....and lets not forget we are a broad church of federal parties...which means that each local group is run by its exec and they decide on local policies...not the centre

tobiasfunke

You have also forgot about all the talk prior to the GE on coalitions and the way the media pushed us to say we would be willing to go into coalition with who ever won if thats what the people decided....and at the time most people accepted that this would be the Tories...so anyone who voted for us were more than aware we could potentially be in government with the Conservatives...so there was no surprise there.

We're not talking about other parties. We're talking about the Lib Dems who are in a coalition partnership with the Tories. This government has hardly showered itself in glory when it comes to social justice.
I think you underestimate how fundamentally disgusted a lot of left leaning Lib Dems voters are. Not just those who voted for them in the last election but long term voters like myself.

Plenty of Lib Dem voters didn't expect you to go into coalition with the Tories. They wouldn't have voted for you if they had. There wouldn't have been the massive backlash against the party if they had expected it. I doubt the Guardian would've backed you if it was that obvious.

Well HesterShaw I am guessing that you are very lucky to have one of the few Lib Dem MPs who are prepared to stick to their principles in Andrew George.

Even he :D

Yes, we are very lucky. He's actually a nice man.

tobiasfunkie- I don't understand that point of view, the Lib Dems are in favour of PR which invariably leads to coalitions so a coalition with the Conservatives at some point would be inevitable. Also since the publishing of the Orange Book the Liberals have become far more right-wing which when you throw in the calamity of the last few years under Labour and their generally illeberal approach then surely a deal with the Tories was far more likely.

I think the idea that left leaning people would now wish to go back to labour as they are the party of social justice in contrast to us compleatly ignores the 13 years of labour in which competition was introduced into the NHS...the gap between rich and poor increased ...hardly any social house were built..etc.

I am in Scotland. At no point was there ever any talk of a coalition with the Tories but then that might have been political suicide round here if there had been.
A coalition with the Tories in itself was not my cup of tea but it might have been ok if there had been any evidence that Clegg et al were reigning in the worst excesses of the bad old Tories. Turns out not.

Presumably PR would have provided more LibDem seats than the present system therefore any coalition would've been less one sided.

I understand that a lot of us were politically naive but I cannot understand the LD party attitude towards people like me (and there is a lot of us) which is basically you were too stupid to really understand what we were about and that's your own fault not ours. It's hardly a vote winner.

This is my last post as I'm off to watch Orange is the New Black.

YANBU. I voted for them for many years, but won't again. They have betrayed every principle they appeared to stand for. Sadly, they are now completely irrelevant.

Oh and add voters who like to know what they're voting for to my list.

God only knows what NC would do if he had a second chance,he's a grade 1 liar devoid of any morals who does just what he wants to push his own career- married tax allowance anyone?You'd basically need to ignore whatever promises he made in an election campaign whist preparing yourself for any eventuality should he get in.

Still not getting who these vast numbers of people who will vote for him would be.

What type of voter would vote libdem?

I have a feeling they will lose huge numbers of votes at the next election, but mainly in the constituencies which are tribally Labour or Tory. They will hold their own strongholds and come back with about 50 MPs again.