Liberal Democrat voters thread

[Madsometimes]

Who do you think that Clegg should go in with?

It is obvious that Labour and Tory voters each have their own ideas, but if you voted Lib Dem on May 6th, what do you think?

yingers - too right - please bang on the door of the lib dem mps meeting and tell them!

lib dems/tories need to stick to what they said and govern in the national interest NOW!

I agree that the assumption that Lib Dem voters would prefer a Lib/Lab pact is just Wrong.

If the election results had been reversed and Labour was on 306 and the Conservatives were on 258, then I would be advocating Lib/Lab. However, the uncomfortable truth is that this is not the case. The Tories have more seats, and significantly Labour lost nearly 100 MP's. There is no mandate for another Labour government. Unfortunately, no-one seems to care what the ordinary Lib Dem voters think. We are being out shouted by others.

More people voted left of centre (ie Lib / Lab / Green etc) than right of centre. Got to be Lib/Lab coalition in my opinion

jvc - I voted lib dem and do not consider myself left of centre. All three parties are probably right of centre. Greens are left of centre.

There really should just be a re election IMO. I doubt very much we would get a hung parliament result again after all of this.

Another election would polarise people to tories or labour, lib dem would lose all seats. I think this is what the tories/media/new labour are trying to engineer. The lib dems need to get the tories to sign on the dotted line for a coalition asap.

do you think it will happen snowlady?

I agree that another election would polarise the vote, snowlady, and I think that it would be a Conservative majority in the end. Part of me is surprised that the Conservatives aren't doing more to engineer this, but I like to think that they recognise how bad it would be for the country to have an even longer period of instability.

snowlady - it's irrelevant what you consider yourself to be, it's what's in the manifestos and the party policies that counts, and with respect, I don't think either Labour or Lib Dem Mandarins would count themselves right of centre.

jvc, comparing all the manifestos puts Lib Dem and Labour right of centre on here and I tend to agree with that analysis.

The way the Lib Dems are dealing with this situation is losing them future voters anyway. They had a chance, they blew it and yes they are between and rock and a hard place but sitting on the fence until someone throws them a big juicy carrot just highlights them as yet another seedy political party out for their own gain Which incidentally is an issue everyone has been moaning about for months and is possibly one of the major contributary factors which has caused this whole situation. They said they would go with the majority, their word is yet to be tested but all this "what's in it for me" just makes them look as bad as the parties they claimed to be so different from IMO

Prolesworth - do you trust Clegg to draw the line if the price demanded by labour is too high? BBC are reporting Labour not budging far enough on civil liberties. So you want Clegg to get into bed with a party that thought 42 days detention without trial was a good idea? Lots of LiBDem voters do see themselves as idealogicially closer to Tory than Labour. Saying "it isn't so" over and over doesn't make it not so.

anastasia - that's a great tool. The point I was originally trying to make I suppose is that the policies of labour / lib dem / green etc are more closely aligned than that of con. If you ignore Authoritarian/Libertarian axis on the matrix, and squish the parties up along the centreline, lib dems and labour aren't too far apart certainly closer than the cons (let's ignore the BNP!) (In addition I must say that I always thought Blair's new labour took the party too far right and I hope that a new lot will do something about that)

Not just losing themselves future voters Woofy but here is one pro-electoral reform vote (held since my law school days) that they have just lost too.

how do we know they are waiting for a juicy carrot? maybe they are not happy with either deal as they see it for the country (and their party, let's face it!)? why should they leap into bed with the first decent offer they get, rather than negotiating until they get a good deal?

Like I said before, there is a need to build consensus in the Lib Dem party, in order for any coalition made to hold. If it is rushed it won't last. I think the Lib Dem MPs pushed for talks to start with Labour after they felt that the Conservative offer yesterday afternoon wasn't close enough to what they could work with (before the offer of a referendum on AV).

I suspect that now the option with Labour has been explored and the issues exposed (civil liberties differences, some backlash in Labour about PR), that the Lib Dem party will now support Clegg is agreeing to a Lib-Con coalition.

We shall see.

I have to say, Michael Gove has come across really well through this (just been on BBC News 24).

kveta you appeared to have answered your own question

Rainbow Alliance would suit me, as I voted Lib Dem but found it hard to choose between them and Plaid Cymru.

I'm definitely not keen on them going with the Conservatives.

I've voted Lib Dem since 1997.

I am firmly for a Con-Lib coalition as it's the only option for a strong stable government with a chance to pull us out of economic mess we are mired in.

If Clegg makes a deal with NuLiebour I will NEVER vote LibDem again.

Hate the idea of a Lib/Con pact as I loathe the tories. I have always quite liked the idea of Lib/Lab. I only voted Lib Dem because Labour are in third place in my constituency.

HOWEVER I think that a lib/lab govt would be undemocratic because Labour lost. So I am in a moral quandry

LibCon also

"I also think that a LibLab coalition would be more about Labour wanting to cling to power than any democratic principles"

Halib you're spot on

I think if Clegg gets a lib/Lab alliance together he can never utter another word that we can take as being honest as long as he lives.