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Posts Tagged ‘Liberal Democrats’

A rather ‘luke warm’ editorial in the Independent in the post Barnsley aftermath, according to them at least, was as follows: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-bad-but-not-terminal-in-barnsley-2232973.html

My response was simple: The result was foreknown, a racing certainty for Labour even on a very low turnout. What happened to the Coalition Parties is not very relevant and I suspect that if there were a General Election today, the national outcome would be pretty much the same as last year. The reality is that people are “waiting” on events, if things go well, the Coalition’s popularity will increase by the next General Election if not…

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It is interesting just how many on the Tory Right have muttered complaints that “…If only Cameron had been more right wing, we would have won a majority…” Oddly, it is matched on the Labour Party side by those that feel that their ‘salvation’ lies in being ever more “Leftie” but of these two extremes, the Labour one is more threatening to it than the right wing Tories are to Cameron.

In the end and as Blair that ultimate “Champagne Socialist” showed, success at the ballot box and jobs for Labour boys and girls, trumps supposed “party principles” every time !

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I wrote yesterday about my view of the expected outcome from the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election and even allowing for the pathetic fumblings of the Media, I was surprised by the torrent of mindless crap that flowed from the result.

Firstly, it makes no difference because it was always a Labour safe seat that only came under any threat because of the mood of the Country in May 2010 which was one of realisation that we could no longer tolerate a Labour Government under the leadership of Gordon Brown. There was neither victory nor any serious ‘judgement’ in this result, all one can say is that if Labour had lost the seat, it would have been a ‘story’, that they didn’t amounts to a ‘No News’ story.

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With today’s by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth a safe Labour seat, the media is obviously giving some attention and for once, the Independent : http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-what-is-and-isnt-at-stake-in-oldham-east-2182988.html totally trumps the rather nonsense piece by Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph : http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100071712/oldham-by-election-we-will-find-out-whether-the-coalition-looks-old-and-sad/

The problem is that the newspapers feel, quite rightly, that they must comment and try and ‘dramatise’ every twist and turn that they can whilst a rather more sophisticated electorate has other things on their mind, the economy and how bad it will all be, the current political dynamics are accepted for the time being, all political journalists are looking rather stale.

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Politically, as far as the Media is concerned, we seem to be living through the dog days of any August as far as ‘worthy news stories’ are concerned. In what seems a disappointed reaction to the sheer lack of any drama in the WikiLeaks stuff, attention has been drawn to the supposed plight of the LibDems and in particular Nick Clegg and Vince Cable over the proposed increase in university tuition fees.

Rather unwisely, it appears that the LibDems signed a pledge not to increase tuition fees but to be fair to them and as they had little hope of ever forming a government, rather than creating a hostage to fortune, they were just participating in a “cost free” political gesture at the time. And then the Fickle Finger of Fate gave them a leading role in a Coalition Government – oh bugger !

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As someone who reads the newspapers online, today’s headlines concerning all the budget cuts have been quite amusing if not to say a little disingenuous. It is impossible for anyone to project what the outcomes of the spending reviews and cuts will be in terms of, “Does it solve the problem or will it of itself cause further problems in the future ?”

The equation is very simple. If government spending is too high then basically that spending must be cut by the same percentage that it is too high compared with government revenue. But in dealing with it, there are really only two options either cut expenditure on things like social security and public service jobs (the software) or/and cut any capital projects that the government might pay for be it in civil engineering, infrastructure or defence (the hardware)…

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David Laws who was appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under the Coalition and despite a promising start especially in the House of Commons last week, has had to resign due to the Daily Telegraph exposing that he is Gay and had been paying his boyfriend rent on his house though paying a ‘partner’ rent has been banned since 2006, apparently. He is wealthy in his own right having made his money in “The City” by the age of 28.

He has said that the reason he did this was he wanted to keep his private life and sexuality secret which one might say that in these apparently “more liberated days”, seems sad but coming out to family and friends will never be easy and childhood background plus ‘assumed social norms’ could intimidate most people but never the less, it is a sad loss though, the clear and ‘warm’ support he received from David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg over his resignation was a nice touch.

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Well it is Sunday and yet another interesting article in the Independent by John Rentoul: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-the-gents-definitely-for-turning-1980437.html

John’s article is worth a read. John Rentoul is ‘known’ as a Tony Blair fan and his insights into David Cameron, originally aired as the “Heir to Blair” are quite interesting because overall, his view is favourable but he does not see him as any kind of Blair clone at all.

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Matthew Parris a former Conservative MP and not known as someone with a particularly soft heart wrote a very upbeat piece on the Times about the new Coalition Government having sat in the Garden of Downing Street to see the fist joint news conference given by David Cameron as PM and Nick Clegg as his Deputy.

“The political earthquake in the rose garden. It almost felt as if a divine hand was at work, bringing together two men to blow away years of staleness.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7124533.ece

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Today, Gordon Brown announced that he was ‘standing down’ as Labour Party Leader but insisted that he stayed on as Prime Minister to “oversee” a Lib/Lab pact which wont deliver a Parliamentary majority without being reliant on any and every demand made by Celtic fringe political parties so that, is not good news and it got worse.

Nick Clegg can’t ‘deliver’ the Parliamentary Liberal Democrat Party so, they are running parallel discussions with both the Conservatives and Labour on forming a “Coalition Government” and the Tories have ‘upped’ their offer to maximum, a Referendum on the electoral system. Unfortunately, most LibDem MPs would favour Labour over the Tories so, it looks like we are headed to Hell in a hand cart and another election by September…Oh Joy !

Between now and then, all we can expect is a worsening “financial situation” followed by a Conservative landslide at the second General Election of 2010 with for a few months, David Muppetband as Prime Minister…the cowardly little runt.