Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
According to the Coalition Agreement, by now we should have been looking forward to a Commons made up of no more than 500 MPs - a reduction of about 150 from today's numbers. Unfortunately, Nick Clegg threw his rattle out of the pram when Lords reform fell through and ensured Commons reform also failed. This despite commons reform being a Lib Dem manifesto pledge in 2010 and a long-standing Lib Dem wish for years even before that.
The Liberal Democrats are duplicitous, cheap-talking opportunists and (horror of horrors) I am beginning to think that single party government is so much more desirable than coalition that a term of a purely Labour administration would be preferable to any government in which any Lib Dem played a part.
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The Liberal Democrats pulled commons reform as the Conservatives pulled Lords reform breaking the agreement they had. It's neither throwing your 'rattle out of the pram' nor 'duplicitous' to withhold your side of the agreement if the other party has already broken theres. Additionally the manifesto commitment specified they wanted to reduce MPs by changing the voting system, not by boundary reform as the Conservatives wanted. So when the referendum failed they came up with the agreement to reform the boundary changes in exchange for their other manifesto commitment, Lords reform.
You may wish the Liberal Democrats were not in Government but they are as the Conservatives failed to secure a majority even when set up against a unpopular and ineffective Prime Minster presiding over one of the largest economic busts in decades. As a result the Tories need to govern in coalition with the Lib Dems and if they cannot do that, if they are presumptions enough to expect to break an agreement whilst still getting what they asked for in return, then they're going to see some of their policies fail.
Besides manifestos are largely useless. The Conservatives had a commitment to protecting civil liberties and rolling back Labour's intrusive state. What a joke that turned out to be.