If Clegg sides with the Tories I don't think I will be voting Lib again

[Loujalou]

Anyone got any thoughts on this. Hopefully it looks like he will side with Labour. But if he went Blue that would be it.

I for one am really happy that it looks as if the LDs are going to be able to restrain Tory excesses. Short of a Lib Dem majority, it's my preferred result.

I also think the Tories are going to be easier to work with than Labour. But PR has to be part of it.

It strikes me as very funny that several posters have said that a Lib-Lab coalition would be 'undemocratic'.

Erm, hello? Those 2 parties between them got 52% of the vote, so how is it undemocratic for them to lead when most people want them?

I would have expected the people voting for LibDem would tend to be more lefties than righties, for him to side with the conservative is like a betrayed vote.

I think the main problem here is that people do not understand what LIBERALISM is.

Yes a lot of Lib Dem policies appeal to left-leaners, but in ideology liberals are much closer to the (currently fairly centre right) Conservatives.

The Lib Dem vote was down by around 5% on what they expected, swing to Tories was 5%... where do you think those votes went then?

as I just said on the other thread, I (as a Lib Dem) hate being lumped together with Labour, and I don't know many Lib Dems who would do. They are very different parties with different mindsets.

I genuinely don't understand the outrage. Surely this is a great oppotunity for the LDs to really get some of their policies onto the statute books?

Lib-Dems are not 'Labour-lite', they are their own party. I would be quite interested to know how long term Lib Dem voters/supporters feel. A lot of the vitriol and disbelief seems to be coming from new Lib Dem voters.

Clegg is in a bloody awkward position tonight, he is dammed if he does and dammed if he doesn't.
If the Lib Dem vote had stood up better at the polls then Clegg would have a stronger mandate to take to the party, as it is he could lose his political life here if he isn't very careful.

Some people don't seem to have noticed that under Tony Blair labour moved a long way to the right and became very authoritarian. Under the labour party the rich got richer. Gordon Brown is more to the left but he is not popular in his own party. Gordon Brown said things like "you can all keep your tax credits" in the election but he was going to raise NI and probably tax would have gone up in other areas. People are going to feel the pinch financially whichever party eventually emerges in government.

There are plenty of areas of common ground between the lib dems and camerons tories:

eg. both oppose 3rd runway at heathrow and support improved rail travel
I think both parties are anti ID cards
I hope both will want to cut the bureaucracy/paperwork in the public sector but keep frontline staff.
Pupil premium in state education
Preserving the green belt - labour do not understand the countryside..they are more city focussed. Lib dems and tories have seats in cities and countryside.

There are other areas where policies are very different so I assume they will discuss what to do on these.
Cameron will be under pressure from the right of his party and Clegg from the left of his so it remains to be seen whether the parties can work together for the "national interest"

The financial markets responded well to the lib dem / tory overtures. I imagine they would go the other way if the lib dems started talking to labour.

Alibaba - as a long term lib dem voter I feel that I can't wait to see the back of new labour. (will not bore you with all the reasons why!)

bloody hell, LibDem voters, he practically TOLD YOU he was going to back Conservative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also he is doing the right thing - The majority of people voted Conservative by 2MILLION votes. How can you expect NC to side with Labour? - It would be a travesty to ignore the majority voice. NC has to do something and he will push Lib policies this way. He will be damned either way.

Totally unfair that NC gets 6 odd million votes (not much less than labour) and only gets 50 seats.

I've been a Lib Dem member since 2003, so not old but not new either, and I'm also glad (very very glad) that Labour is out. I wish we could have taken more seats, but the party won't be blaming Clegg for it, far from it (if that's what you meant by the mandate he has to take to his party). The party will be insisting on PR, though.

Alibaba, I personally don't think it's a question so much of getting particular policies on to the statue books as of working constructively to do things a different way from Labour (and there's soooo much that needs to be done differently) while acting as a moderating force on the Conservatives.

and I wouldn't want to take any cabinet seats.

really - you wouldn't want a liberal as Minister of education?
justice?
environment?

No. What's the point of taking cabinet seats? I think they're going to be refused. Better to retain some independence (over legislation) in an agreement that's stronger than confidence-and-supply, but not all the way to a coalition.

" By Tolalola Fri 07-May-10 20:03:02
It strikes me as very funny that several posters have said that a Lib-Lab coalition would be 'undemocratic'.

Erm, hello? Those 2 parties between them got 52% of the vote, so how is it undemocratic for them to lead when most people want them? "

Well only if you take the view that the British people said they emphatically didn't want Tory.... which you could spin, but it would be spin.

If you vote Liberal it's because you want Liberal and you believe in them.

Liberal does not equal Labour.

Of course neither does it equal Conservative but it would be more democratic to do a deal with the party who did get the majority of the vote and form a stronger coalition or do a deal where NC agrees not to bring down a Conservative Govt which is, de facto, giving him confidence of the Commons.

It's not undemocratic, just one is arguably more democratic than the other.

We would still have this whole issue if we had PR! In fact it would probably be worse if we had PR and got these figures (can't speculate on how PR might have affected the votes cast).

dont see how the lib dems will retain an credibility going forward if the settle for a coalition without a referendum on PR/electoral reform. we all know a poxy committee wont go anywhere. lib dems will be on a very sticky wicket distinguishing themselves from the tories at the next election.

HerHonesty, Lib Dem MPs also know a poxy committee won't go anywhere. The Tories can come up with a better offer on this, and one with a firm timetable so that the LDs can leave if it doesn't happen.

No. What's the point of taking cabinet seats

maybe there are some talented Lib dem politicians that would be really good a the job, for one thing. I fail to see how they could influence policy effectively (more than multi-party thinktanks already do) without a presence at the cabinet table.

There is no point them backing the Tories unless they get cabinet seats. If they are going to get into coalition they need to water down Cameron and co. Not that I am happy about it though.... A minority government would definently mean an election sooner rather than later. Would give Cameron a chance to mess it up and people to see there true colours.

I do sympathise with left wing Lib Dem supporters, it's a big kick in the teeth - but I don't understand why any of you are surprised.

Nick Clegg quite openly said he would support the Tories.

He's a careerist politician along the lines of Blair/Mandelson and will be looking out for himself first and foremost.

Betrayed is the word - can we start a petition or a campaign or something to show NC just how many people would be leaving the libdems to rot if he gets in with the tories?

But cabinet seats are worth less than the votes the party has in Parliament. Having someone in a cabinet seat only makes them privy to a few decisions made in cabinet, doesn't give real power, if funding isn't provided for any decisions made as a minister.

It's perhaps good for public relations to be seen to have some cabinet seats, but as snowlady and vesela have pointed out there are areas of common ground (and where the LDs would be more likely to agree with Labour on policies, they're likely to either tell DC they will vote against, or get DC to tone down proposals).

It's really down to them being damned by some people and shouting 'sell out' when in truth, they have a real opportunity to see policies tempered from the extremes either of Labour or Conservative.

Sure there are drawbacks to siding with DC against Labour, but as has been posted, siding with GB isn't a sensible option either. The electorate voted, and Labour lost plenty of seats, so going with the ones 'tossed out of power' is dumb.

Conservative voters will also be considering where they stand on some of their policies being thrown out, or diluted. Labour are licking their wounds, and already talking about how Gordon needs to go before the September conference.

It's quite funny to see views from those strongly against the Lib Dems getting all high-horse. No single party has a working majority, so compromise is the name of the game if there's going to be any stability. Now, time to sit tight and see what happens as we can speculate all we like, but our speculation means nowt really.

Given the demonstration today, and online campaigns for a change to Proportional Representation, I think all party leaders will pretty quickly get the message that not considering it will lose them more votes in future...

ElephantsAndMiasmas - what do you think would happen if he went with Labour instead ?

The situation right now is that SNP and Plaid Cymru could side with DC (unlikely I know, but for sufficient funding guaranteed to Scotland and Wales, they could be bought!) and it would then depend on "others" to push a vote in one or other direction.

You have to remove the speaker, deputy speakers and so on, from the numbers, so the exact number of votes for each of the three biggest parties are likely to be a bit lower.