If "there is no future for the Lib Dems as a party of the left" ...

[Eleison]

... can the Labour Party gain by attracting to its own party the rump of genuinely leftist Lib Dems who can't stomach their own party any longer?

If they joined Labour would that help to secure its own uncertain future as a party of the left?

Seems likely. Certainly the libdems seem to be rolling over on everything the cons ask them to.

Nick clegg seems defeated and resigned tbh.A labour govt at the next election seems a sure thing now and will be a landslide if they nab all the disgruntled lib dems

I was quite shocked by what NC said. I'm not sure a lot of his party would agree. Interesting article by Polly Toynbee in today's guardian about lib dems.

The key word is "receptacle." "The Lib Dems never were and aren't a receptacle for left wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party."

I was quite interested when Nick Cleg kept going on and on on the webchat about how some people think it is a good thing to have different people with opposed opinions working together (obv in reference to thee coalition).

But the argument fails, as the coalition is not a 50/50 split. It's the Tories making some allowances for the Lib Dems. They aren't working together. The Tories are doing what they like, only they have to argue about it a bit more, and occasionally they throw Clegg a bone.

To sign off from the webchat with "I'm not a Tory", and also add that to the "What's your favourite joke? Nick Clegg" from Cameron indicates that they don't like each other, they don't want to work together.

I can't see the coalition lasting. Hopefully, Labour will pick up the pissed of Liberals - I know several who say that they will not vote LD again, there MUST be more - the question is where will they go? Will they go to Labour, or Green? WIll they go to independents? I suppose it doesn't matter that much - the main question becomes the Tory vote - they could gain votes. But if they don't, or if they lose votes, then they won't win anyway and with no-one to form coalition with, it might be down to Labour.

Unless the voting system gets changed (HA!)

gawd look at the spelling on that!

"will be a landslide if they nab all the disgruntled lib dems"

Even if every Lib Dem seat became a Labour one Labour wouldn't have an outright majority right now. And that wouldn't happen anyway, in the most hotly contested LibDem/Tory seats you'd get a Tory in anyway with a split vote if even half of the Lib Dems defected.

Labour would have to win Tory voters and currently I don't think they're offering a viable alternative.

Once the reality of the cuts sets in and people start to feel the pain they will have no trouble taking tory seats

bUt even if they don't take the Tory seats AND even if Lib Dem voters don't defect to Labour, then you still don't have an outright winner. So either the Tories take on a minority or you are looking at a coalition on the labour side (assuming that this is a result of a coalition fail and therefore no more ConDem pact)

I wonder what truth there is in the talk of Charles Kennedy possibly defecting to Labour. I know the rumours are being talked down atm, but you never know.

I do think that there is potential for the Lib Dems to redeem themselves. Another leader would have to come in and just say "look, we fucked up, lawd knows what Cleggo was thinking" and take them back lefty left again. Would take years though and they would never get a decent amount of votes again if they went away from the centre.

Nick Clegg is being used and it's such a shame. The prospect of having a 3rd party that was truly independent of both of the major parties would have been a good thing for democracy. The 3rd way was such an attractive idea; breaking away from the two party mentality, but rather unfortunately it didn't work.

I'm trying and failing to understand the rather complicated picture of the Liberal Party splits that resulted from the party's participation in coalitions in the 1920s and 1930s. I think that the 'National Liberals' allies of the Tories eventually became swallowed up within the Conservative Party I think. Clegg is such a natrual Tory anyway that I would imagine it entirely plausible that he and like-minded Liberals would come to be so spliced with the Conservatives as to lose any connection with the party's left, which might then be drawn towards Labour without brake from the right.

Iirc the polling data at the time showed that support for the Lib Dems going into coalition with Labour was higher amongst Lib Dem voters than it was in the general population.

I suppose some of those could be tactical voters who will be stuck for who to vote for in the next election - it doesn't necessarily equate to more Labour wins if they are in constituencies that are Con/LD contests

TBH, I don't think Labour would want to Con LIbs to fall apart too soon; it would be mess for them to jump in now in the turmoil?

If the ConLIb fell apart NC would join the Tories as he has very similar outlook to DC...he would be feted in the Tory party for what he did last election.

I can't easily imagine the libDems going for a leader saying 'Another leader would have to come in and just say "look, we fucked up, lawd knows what Cleggo was thinking"' and then leading them to the political wilderness again.

They have 5 Cabinet Ministers! 5 Cabinet Ministers!

When did they anticipate getting that number, ever?

Power, even when it is in diluted form, is pretty intoxicating. When Cameron is out-of-the-country, Clegg is the de facto Prime Minister and leader of HM's Government. Read it again, Clegg, a LibDem...leader of the Her Majesty's government. If there is a crisis, he will be the one in front of the cameras, he's the one on the phone to Obama etc.

From what I understand the LibDems and Tories are working well at Ministerial level, and ultimately it is never going to be a 50/50% split, because the LibDems did worse at the election than they anticipated.

Both sides have something to contribute; the tories for their hard-headiness and simple acceptance of reality (the countries buggered, Labour spent all the money) and the LibDems to pull them up and say 'you can't do that' when tory loonies try to gain a foothold, whilst having a few of their ideas actually make it into legislation.

But the Tories will gain a sliver of social conscience and the LibDems will gain experience of national government from the coalition.

But I'll never vote for a party again that looks like it will win an overall majority. Coalitions are the way of the future (works fine in the rest of Europe) and overall majority parties are too tempted by the extremes of power - such as New Labour's obsessions with curtailing civil liberties since 1997.

See I just don't anticipate disgruntled lib dems going over to Labour.

At a fundemental level they disagree on what a state is for. How big it should be. And how it interacts in people's daily lives.

On of Dr Who's many gadgets is an identity card with a 'perception filter'... the person looking at the card sees what they expect to see. I think Clegg's entire campaign was rustled up on one of those or at least his supporters were happy to hear what they wanted to hear when he was flashing a smile on the TV debates. I say this because of the wide range of opinions now being expressed in LibDem ranks. Some furious, others pleased. Why? You don't see too many Tory supporters with their arms folded, looking shocked and tutting 'he never mentioned anything about cuts to us'.

LibDem voters may defect to Labour or even decide that they're Tories after all. And some will persist in voting tactically and then moan about the outcome. C'est la vie

Litchick doesn't that assume an ideological coherence within the Lib Dem party that just isn't there? They just aren't all laissez-faire-ists or libertarians. After all the party has its name from an ill-fated alliance with a 'social democratic' party, anti-socialist but certainly not to the right of the marketising/privatising policies of New Labour. Labour has shown itself decisively to be all for reducing the state selectively, contracting out services willy-nilly. The big-state/small-state divide seems to be fought out within centre and left parties, not between them.

And it is true as Clegg says that on other sorts of issues notably Iraq Lib Dem has become a ghetto for leftists disillusioned with Labour. So I do feel a little bit hopeful that some leftists currently slumming it in Lib Dem might feel it is now better to work to change Labour leftwards, rather than to shun Labour.

But surely if the Labour party shifts to the left it's going to lose all of the centerist voters, either off to the new Lib Dems or even (whisper it) to the Tories?

Bet that's more than can be compensated for by some disgruntled left wing Lib Dem voters.

yes, being in power is intoxicating..especially if you are NC, but the grassroots are a bit confused about this and will become more so over time when the one-off manifesto confessions fade?

Well, I'm pretty left-wing, but I have no time for Labour. They try to please all the people all the time, and end up selling everyone short. I also feel they have quietly and systematically turned us into a nation on namby-pamby whiners with no sense of responsibility for our own lives and no common sense at all.

So when the Lib Dems shot into the spotlight before the election, I hoped that perhaps they were a viable alternative. I also hoped that the Lib Dem side of the coalition would temper any extreme right-wing policies from the Tories.

It seems I was horribly wrong on both counts.

So now, I have no idea where to turn. I'm not remotely interested in Labour, Tory or Lib Dem.

I wish the Green Party had more power....

Annie they can only get more power if they get more members. I agree it is annoying that they are so small, but I find comfort in the fact that even though they have a tiny influence, at least I am supporting something I agree with.

To your question "no", but they could be a good party for the right.