[Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition

I think the LibDem Deputy Chancellor put it best - Guardian

David Laws, the chief secretary to the Treasury, whose first act in office was to scrap his chauffeur-driven Jaguar, said: "We cannot afford to continue to increase public debt at the rate of £3bn each week. "Our huge public debts threaten financial stability and if left unchecked would derail the economic recovery. Public borrowing is only taxation deferred, and it would be deeply irresponsible to continue to accumulate vast debts which would have to be paid off by our children and our grandchildren for decades to come."

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Arthur bless you you really do get yourself all worked up lol and clearly facts then become redundent in your world. Riddle me this Arthur who was it that managed to take a stable economy that was growing and turn it into this deficit ???. Who was it that went on a stupid increase of the public sector that was completely unsustainable in order to falsely manipulate figures ???. Who is now going to have to take all the brown stuff for sorting it all out as usual yes thats right the torys although maybe this time a little of the dirt will fall onto the lib dems as well.

Labour will do what it always does create a god awful mess leave it to others to sort out and then when it's all sorted and things are back on an evenish keel will come back telling us all how nasty said party/parties that sorted the mess out are and how we deserve more. Like complete brain dead monkeys the majority will then vote them in as being pampered sounds good and the cycle starts all over again.

Yes this is going to be a painful few years for UK plc and sadly it has to happen and nobody who got voted in could have done anything but what is going to be done and never was going to be able too despite what a red tinged party was promising when it wanted us to vote them back in. Incapacity benefit can be reduced easily you simply get off all the people that were put on it under labour for no reason other then making unemployment figures look better about a million of them.

But none of that is any good unless said people have a job to go to and private sector jobs are better then public jobs whihc as we have seen have drained the country for the last decade. Are some front line services going to be cut i don't know for sure but i would guess some will have to be and again there is no choice.

As for your "lets cut mp's salarys" yeah another gem of an idea from the world of Arthur lets put them all on minimum wage and make the job completely unappealing to the people with the experience and knowledge needed to run decent government we can then truly vote in chimps and ride that train all the way down to a level we can never get back from. Like it or not Arthur sometimes you have to pay decent money to get decent people or at the very least stand a chance of getting decent people.

Your an analogue tv in a digital era Arthur and the time for class warriors like you has thankfully gone and most of us can see things clear enough to disregard old battle lines and move onto modern thinking and solutions. Come on Arthur join the majority of us in this century it's a lot better then you think .

That has got to be one of the best posts of today

[Tezcatlipoca]

Guardian/ICM poll: voters back coalition, but Lib Dem support dips

Originally Posted by Julian Glover for The Guardian

Voters approve of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government so far, according to the first Guardian/ICM poll to be published since the general election.

There is also widespread support for changes to the electoral system, with people apparently sanguine about the prospect of further hung parliaments.

But today's poll suggests the Lib Dems have suffered some damage after deciding to join the Tories in government, with almost a fifth of those who backed the party this month saying they might be less likely to do so in the future. Support for the party has also dropped three percentage points since the general election, to 21% – although that remains higher than in many pre-election ICM polls.

There is no sign of a widespread movement of Lib Dem voters to Labour, with most people who voted Lib Dem this month saying the decision to join the coalition would make no difference to their decision to support the party. A quarter say it will actually make them more likely to vote Lib Dem.

(snip)

Overall, 59% of voters say they approve of the decision to form a coalition and 32% oppose it. Tory voters are most enthusiastic, with 81% in favour and only 16% against. People who voted Lib Dem are slightly less keen about the deal that put the Conservative leader David Cameron in power, with 69% in favour and 26% against.

Labour voters are understandably less convinced, with 51% against and 40% in favour.

(snip)

[Derek]

And just in case anyone had any remaining doubts that labour didn't know just how bad things were.

on the evening of Monday, May 10, after the first talks had taken place between Labour and the Lib Dems, Paddy Ashdown frantically tried to get in touch with Tony Blair in the hope of persuading him to broker a deal. He eventually reached him by telephone at 3am on Tuesday morning only to be told that he thought it wasn’t in Labour’s interest to remain in office. “We need to go into Opposition,”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/to...he-green-room/

[Anonymouse]

I don't know about any of this. On the one hand, don't the Tories have a majority, slimmer than a supermodel though it is?

On the other hand, it's interesting how quickly opposing parties jumped into bed with each other, isn't it? Ostensibly their ideals and principles (don't laugh, I'm not being sarcastic...yet) are incompatible, so the whole coalition idea seems a bit hypocritical.

I still think Harold Saxon, a.k.a. the Master, had the right idea. He knew what to do with people who would so readily abandon their principles and jump on the band wagon: he gassed 'em all!

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

I don't know about any of this. On the one hand, don't the Tories have a majority, slimmer than a supermodel though it is?

On the other hand, it's interesting how quickly opposing parties jumped into bed with each other, isn't it? Ostensibly their ideals and principles (don't laugh, I'm not being sarcastic...yet) are incompatible, so the whole coalition idea seems a bit hypocritical.

I still think Harold Saxon, a.k.a. the Master, had the right idea. He knew what to do with people who would so readily abandon their principles and jump on the band wagon: he gassed 'em all!

I don't think it's a matter of abandoning principles. Compromise yes, abandoning no. If you're going to work together there will have to be some give and take, and working together was the best option given the outcome of the election. The Tories don't have an outright majority by themselves. Together with the Lib Dems they do. Personally, I like the compromise. The most extreme policies of both parties are shelved, and the result is fairly centrist which I think is good for the long term.

Plus, over 60% of the voters voted for one of the parties in power. That's got to be a good thing.

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Derek S

And just in case anyone had any remaining doubts that labour didn't know just how bad things were.



http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/to...he-green-room/

Silly you, you missed something from the quote, here, let me help:

By far the juiciest bit of gossip is that on the evening of Monday, May 10, after the first talks had taken place between Labour and the Lib Dems, Paddy Ashdown frantically tried to get in touch with Tony Blair in the hope of persuading him to broker a deal. He eventually reached him by telephone at 3am on Tuesday morning only to be told that he thought it wasn’t in Labour’s interest to remain in office. “We need to go into Opposition,” he told the former Lib Dem leader.

There, that's better, isn't it.

---------- Post added at 14:14 ---------- Previous post was at 14:12 ----------

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

I don't know about any of this. On the one hand, don't the Tories have a majority, slimmer than a supermodel though it is?

No, the Tories don't have a majority, they simply have more seats than any of the other parties. That is why they had to form a coalition with another party.

On the other hand, it's interesting how quickly opposing parties jumped into bed with each other, isn't it? Ostensibly their ideals and principles (don't laugh, I'm not being sarcastic...yet) are incompatible, so the whole coalition idea seems a bit hypocritical.

I still think Harold Saxon, a.k.a. the Master, had the right idea. He knew what to do with people who would so readily abandon their principles and jump on the band wagon: he gassed 'em all!

There's still time.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Silly you, you missed something from the quote, here, let me help:

There, that's better, isn't it.

Are you seriously suggesting that what Toby Young is reporting is just plain untruth?

[Flyboy]

Are you seriously suggesting that you would blindly believe him, even when he admits it is nothing more than rumour?

I think it's you that needs to re-read the article.

Here is the only qualification that he gives to the material he then goes on to discuss:

This is where you get to hear all the news that’s not fit to print – what’s really going on behind closed doors but which doesn’t make it into the programme either because it’s too “inside” or because it isn’t possible to stand up. So without revealing my sources, let me give you some of the headlines.

The material he then imparts we can take to be genuine. It was not reported as news at the time because nobody would go on the record to confirm it. This is not surprising; the BBC's rules on reporting single-source or anonymous, uncorroborated sources is well known, especially post-Hutton.

If you are allowing the fact that he chose to use the word 'gossip' in the next sentence to blind you to this, then so far as I can see you are either wilfully doing so, or else you have serious difficulty with some of the subtleties of English communication. Perhaps you could say which.

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Chris

I think it's you that needs to re-read the article.

Here is the only qualification that he gives to the material he then goes on to discuss:


The material he then imparts we can take to be genuine. It was not reported as news at the time because nobody would go on the record to confirm it. This is not surprising; the BBC's rules on reporting single-source or anonymous, uncorroborated sources is well known, especially post-Hutton.

If you are allowing the fact that he chose to use the word 'gossip' in the next sentence to blind you to this, then so far as I can see you are either wilfully doing so, or else you have serious difficulty with some of the subtleties of English communication. Perhaps you could say which.

Oh come on. I really don't find it credible that even you believe that. Unnamed sources..., insiders say..., word on the street...., come on, really.

[Osem]

It seems to me that some folks around here have palpable double standards when it comes to which 'rumours' they tend to believe and the difference between fact and conjecture.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Oh come on. I really don't find it credible that even you believe that. Unnamed sources..., insiders say..., word on the street...., come on, really.

Yes, really. The thing is, to take the position you have chosen to take, you need to ignore Toby Young's entire opening paragraph. In it, he doesn't simply claim anything is 'the word on the street' - he explains exactly where the news comes from, and exactly why it wasn't reported at the time. In fact, the only thing he hasn't done is name the person who gave him the information.

And if you truly think there is something intrinsically suspicious or untrustworthy about a journalist who doesn't name his source ... well, Woodward and Bernstein would be very disappointed in you.

The dissolution Honours list - Politicshome

Well known names on it include

John Prescott
Michael Howard
Floella Benjamin
Paul Boateng
Sue Nye (as in - "I blame Sue")
John Gummer
Phil Willis
Des Brown
John Hutton
John Reid
Ian Paisley
Sir Ian Blair

Go, Floella!