Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

-----------------

This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

-----------------

So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

I think the LibDems were very wrongly blamed for not getting everything they wanted from the coalition - but to be in the coalition at all they needed to compromise.

Nick Clegg was grown up enough to compromise about some things (yes, tuition fees) in order to get other more important things - such as the increase in income tax allowance and stopping Cameron from doing anything stupid on Europe.

It is a shame the LibDems aren't more popular now. I'd love them to get together with the majority of the parliamentary labour party and form a real opposition but I suspect that is a pipe dream.

I agree stripey about labour and lib dem coalition but I think there are too many negatives for both sides for it to realistically happen.

Immediately after the election, Cameron was the one who needed to compromise - and fast. He was dead in the water. Clegg had a couple of days in which he could have asked for anything he wanted. He wasn't just cynical, he was bloody stupid. I've no time for him at all.

"You reap what you sow"
As long as many Labour and Liberal voters stay home in their offended huff, then what they all reap is a Tory government.

The former leaders who made those decisions will never apologise.
Do you really prefer decades of Tory rule ?
See no difference between them and your party ?
Fair enough if so.

I think that tutition fees are a totally different issue to the horrendous Iraq debacle:
There is little reason why broadly the less well off half of the population should subsidise the half who now have better prospects - repayment of loans only happens above a certain income.

Also, Labour's great plan to increase the number of graduates has mainly just decreased the chances of those who aren't graduates:
a far more educated workforce didn't create many more jobs, just a higher entry bar for the existing jobs.

When I went to Uni, only about 6 % of the population did so.
The other 94%, especially those with A levels were only excluded from limited number of professions
Now a degree is used by many employers just to exclude 50% / non-mc

Capitalism is based on Supply and Demand
Labour just increased Supply

such as the increase in income tax allowance and stopping Cameron from doing anything stupid on Europe

Unfortunately for them the effect of the lib dems was probably to reign in the conservatives and make them look less scary, while making themselves look like they weren't delivering on their promises.

Clegg vs Cameron after the election was like the UK vs the EU now:

Some leverage, but not the dominating position that some committed Liberals / nationalists think
Very vulnerable to damage if their bluff is called.
Cameron didn't / the EU won't - back down on fundamental issues that will wreck their respecive organisations for years

Excuse me but I'm not staying at home. And I think it's a little patronising to tell me I'm in a huff because I expect senior politicans to be accountable for their actions.

I think that tutition fees are a totally different issue to the horrendous Iraq debacle:
I agree with that. But I cannot forget how the Lib dems courted young people in 2010 and how, for many of those young people, it was their first experience of politics. I wonder how active they are now. No Iraq, I agree but still massively damaging for us all.

The Liberals did an excellent job for the country, but forgot to blow their own trumpet properly.
Still better than putting party politics first

I agree with Fliosme's assessment of Clegg's performance. The issues he "won" on were largely cosmetic - vote on AV which he would never win and same sex marriage which conferred very little in addition to civil partnership legislation already in place.

His biggest compromise from my POV was raising the bottom rate of tax over defending the welfare budget. This has been the mask the Tories have used ever since to continue attacks on single parent families, the disabled, the unemployed. Additionally, I firmly believe taking people earning a "Living Wage" out of tax disenfranchises them. I also think tuition fees are an attack on meritocracy.

The coalition for me highlighted how the art of compromise can mean favouring the extremes of policy as there is far less scope for non-partisan compromise behind the scenes.

In a former life I spent a lot of time in meetings with Europeans and Americans. To illustrate the difference in approach, the Franco German mindset is that all public pronouncements and meetings are set pieces. All negotiation gets done in side conversations at the bar before and after. This is in stark contrast to the Anglo US approach of working through issues in the body of the meeting and for me neatly explains why the UK has never been taken seriously in "negotiations" with the EU. Even when DC tried the off-meeting approach with AM in his renegotiation it is clear that he was completely incapable of coping with the rules of engagement - obvs too used to compromise with walkover Clegg.

Tuition fees cost Labour Scotland and the pledge not to introduce them keeps the SNP in power.

Clegg had some negotiating power with Cameron obviously - and I think we can see the differences between a Coalition government and a Conservative government more clearly now.

The idea that Clegg (the smaller party) had the upper hand with Cameron (the much larger party) is about as laughable as saying that Britain now has the whip hand in its negotiations with Europe.

Labour needs to sort itself out and to deal with the present rather sizeable issues. Corbyn seems to be more interested in extracting retribution from his own party for the Iraq war than in leading.

Realistically I think it's lack of funding for living costs that really prevents poorer students going to university because those have to be paid upfront.

Fees are paid in full by what amounts to a graduate tax.

Cross post BigChoc

merry poor students have more access to living costs loans than anyone else and they are also less likely to reach the point where they will repay them as well as fees through the 9% tax. The students who suffer are the ones with parents who don't contribute but are assessed as having enough income to do so.

The idea that Clegg (the smaller party) had the upper hand with Cameron (the much larger party) is about as laughable...

Clegg did have the upper hand immediately after the 2010 election. He only had it for a couple of days and he needed to make that time count. In that window, he could have wrung all kinds of concessions from Cameron. He failed. By the time parliament opened, Cameron was back on the front foot.

In that window, he could have wrung all kinds of concessions from Cameron.

He did.

Hence the difference between the rapaciousness of the coalition government and the Tory majority.

It seems he thought again on tuition fees and gave them up for other things he thought mattered more.

I'm more used to German politics, where coalition has brought very positive results.
However, the very small "liberal" party has sometimes got hammered electorally, going under the 5% limit for seats.
Probably coalition of more equal parties works much better in getting compromises.

Merkel led a very successful CDU / SPD coalition for years
However, there seems far more anagonism between Labour and Tories than between SPD and CDU
Everyone tries to keep out die Linke, which is more extreme. Also to keep out the far right of course.

It seems he thought again on tuition fees and gave them up for other things he thought mattered more.
If Clegg thought other things mattered more, then he shouldn't have made tuition fees the flagship during the election campaign. Giving up on your flagship pledge at the first sight of a ministerial car is massively cynical and foolish.

The students who suffer are the ones with parents who don't contribute but are assessed as having enough income to do so.

I would say that makes them poor students!

The last 3 weeks or so, I've felt there should be a ticker tape permanently going

What the FUCK ?

So much change so quickly
Stop, I want to catch my breath !

The fact that their voters felt tuition fees should have been the key policy in coalition talks though is what makes the compromises reached seem unpopular
And why did voters think that? Because the Lib Dems toured the country waving their signed pledges. They deliberately courted young people and then dumped them as soon as it became politically inexpedient. And now we complain that young people are apathetic about politics.

Two Johnsons in government - anyone know the last time brothers were both ministers??

Weren't both Milibands in government?

David Coburn MEP @DavidCoburnUKip
I don't want to wait for more innocents to be slaughtered across Europe I want unified and coordinated action
2:02 AM - 15 Jul 2016

You mean, like through the EU?

Well quite Red.

tiggy I remember all that as well. The LP rush to jettison their leader with the collusion of the Lib/Dems at the expense of a Tory government. Exactly the same behaviour on display with the PLP now

merry I went to Uni on a full maintenance grant. My poorer friends were pressurised by parents to get out and earn and not waste time at Uni. The change now is that young people's wages are not protected, there is no benefit system for under 25s and there is a resignation towards accepting government loans you will never repay. My richer friends did not have living funds but were constantly being micromanaged by parents holding the purse strings - now they get min loans and parental support They are far less "poor" than before.