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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:00 pm 
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I'm gonna vote for it. I think you have to trust people that they won't do something silly like vote BNP in second place.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:22 am 
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RP wrote:
I'm gonna vote for it. I think you have to trust people that they won't do something silly like vote BNP in second place.


I don't think you can trust people or politicians! :?

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:58 pm 
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Longpigsdad wrote:
RP wrote:
I'm gonna vote for it. I think you have to trust people that they won't do something silly like vote BNP in second place.


I don't think you can trust people or politicians! :?


I do think that if nothing else the BNP is such an insane choice that it's unlikely to be enough people's second choice to make any significant difference...

Also what Craig said about where we'd be if we'd had this last year... It's almost completely certain we wouldn't have a Tory government, because Conservative is such an unlikely second choice, and they already didn't have a majority... Sigh.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 11:12 pm 
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craig could well have a point, but you're forgetting that labour were so unpopular that even the grauniad came out in favour of the libs (mostly over the proportional rep stance), and i was horrified at the idea that so many people were duped by them.
those tv debates where clegg kept winning by saying nice things and cameron lying that the NHS was safe with him. how could any fule have fallen for that one ?

sorry, i must calm down. no, in fact i should stay angry.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:37 am 
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DisneyTime wrote:
Also what Craig said about where we'd be if we'd had this last year... It's almost completely certain we wouldn't have a Tory government, because Conservative is such an unlikely second choice, and they already didn't have a majority... Sigh.


Apologies in advance for this fairly long post, but I bloody love talking about constitutional reform...

And that, if anything, is why people *need* to vote for AV. It's a system that the BNP don't want and one the Tories will do worse under, and they are the main funders of the No campaign for that very reason.

The lection last year conclusively showed that the majority of this country is centre left (Lab+LD=52%, Con+UKIP=39%), but the voting system meant that only a centre right government with classical liberal economic support could be formed. AV would have meant we had a centre left government right now. It would have been given a legitimate mandate to govern, an majority in the house of commons and would have been another nail in the Tory coffin. First Past the Post is (partly) to blame for what we have now and it has to go.

I would safely guess, after two years working in Westminster (don't shoot me, someone has to) 85% of Liberals would vote Labour as their second preference.

Whatever the current Liberal situation is now, at it's core the party members and voters are left wing - Beveridge designed the welfare state, Liberal governments brought in the pension, national insurance and it's spiritual leader, Roy Jenkins (when he was a Labour Home Secretary) passed the social legislation that saw a huge step forward in equal, social democratic rights.

What seperates them from Labour is a wariness about the role of the state to solve problems rather than people themselves, not the values and ideals of social democracy; and that is also why most Liberals won't vote Tory.

Economic, Orange Book Liberals would probably vote Tory - but from experience that makes up only a slender part of the party makeup, even though it currently dominates the party leadership - just like Blair did not ever reflect the real voice of the Labour party members.

AV would allow progressive, centre left parties and voters to unite around one simple principle - they don't want a Tory government. When the left fought itself rather than the Tories, it was in opposition for 18 years.

When the two parties supporting the No campaign are the Tories and the BNP, it'll be a pleasure to vote Yes.

Next up, why we need a Republic :D

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:31 am 
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liberals are NOT left

that's why we're in this pickle now.
they're free marketeers
they're anti state tories

the reforms the liberals made in the 1910's were in response to the revolutionary mood across europe at the time, i.e. just enough to stop the people rioting, it wasn't until attlee's labour government of 1945 that we got the provision we see now.

don't think they're lefties, they're not, they just made noises that sounded a bit left. please don't mistake neo liberalism for left.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:36 pm 
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Well said that man! And, after all these years of saying they were disenfranchised and underrepresented and hard done by, they are the most enthusiastic butchers of all in these cuts. Always said they were Tories in disguise but didn't really expect them to be quite so fervent in proving me right. x


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:58 pm 
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helenwatson wrote:
Well said that man! And, after all these years of saying they were disenfranchised and underrepresented and hard done by, they are the most enthusiastic butchers of all in these cuts. Always said they were Tories in disguise but didn't really expect them to be quite so fervent in proving me right. x


Here here!

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:17 pm 
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Ok, this post is massive (1220 words in fact) and probably really boring - but as I say, I'm utterly obsessed by political history.

By no means would I ever support the cuts, I proudly work for a Trade Union after all. But what I fear is a return to the 80s in terms of an infighting left letting Thatcher get away with murder and I think there is a strong case in the history of the Liberal movement that indicates that while they may not be Labour-Left they are Centre-Left, in that they are not Tories in the way the current government may appear to demonstrate.

I do agree with some of the thrust of what you're saying, but I think it's much more complicated than that. For instance, the revolutionary mood in Europe didn't exactly go down well with a lot of the Socialist movement in the UK at the time. Those who opposed Parliament as a root to Socialism did, but that was not the majority mood at the time. The 1926 General Strike, for instance, was opposed by many in the Labour party.

The point I tried to make in my last post is that history demonstrates a consistently far-closer cooperation between the majority of Liberals in UK politics and Labour than there has been with the Tories.

In regards to the Liberals; Yes, they are free marketeers - but given at the time the Tories were Protectionists and the roots of the Liberal party lie in repealing the Corn Laws, which put the issue of cheap food ahead of the wealth of land owners, there is such a thing of supporting free trade and not being a Tory. Ok, that was the early to late 19th Century - but the roots of the Liberal party lie in ideological differences to the Tories, at a time before Marxism and when the Liberals were the opposition in the way Labour is now.

The major Liberal social reforms happened from 1901 onwards (Pensions and National Insurance), before widespread revolutionary mood - Paul Foot's epic book 'The Vote; How it was Won and how it was undermined' sets that out quite clearly, and given Foot was a diehard socialist, he's hardly going to give Liberals an easy ride. Ok, once again that was the early 20th century. But as Roy Hattersley's book on Lloyd George lays out in detail, the social Liberals of that time had the focus on social justice as the early Labour party did (they in fact worked together closely in some respects, with the early Labour Party telling voters in many areas to vote Liberal), but they did not just believe in socialist planning.

At this point, the Liberal party split into two separate entities with a faction of National Liberals eventually folding into the Tories. The Liberal party itself though didn't, because they weren't Tories. They weren't Labour either though. As politics became divided over socialism and the Liberal part declined, many left to form what I suppose you could call the Right wing of the Labour Party - interested in social justice, wary of socialist planning and, in their view, a state that restricted individual liberty - the fore runners of Roy Jenkins et al.

Being wary of the state in terms of economic planning simply does not make you a Tory, highlighted by the very Labour government you sight. The planning for the Welfare State was laid down by the liberal Lord Beveridge and was paid for by economic planning, ideas and loan schemes arranged by the liberal Lord Keynes. The welfare state was as much a Liberal goal as it was a Labour goal, the difference was in how they believed it should be funded in terms of major economic planning. Also, at that point when the Liberal party was dying the vast majority of Liberals who left the party joined the Labour party - Tony Benn's father and Michael Foot's brother are good examples of that, as both had been Liberal MPs before being Labour ones.

1974 is another example. The Liberals did not prop up Ted Heath, with the inevitable conclusion of Labour getting a majority in the October election - they had an opportunity to prop up the Tories, and they didn't take it.

1996-98 saw the near merging of the Labour party with the LibDems, whilst Paddy Ashdown was leader, who himself had been in the Labour Party (for that matter, Vince Cable had been a Labour Councillor in Glasgow). The reason it didn't happen was that Blair no longer needed their potential support after the 1997 landslide - just think how different politics would be today if they did, a centre left party of that size would have dominated British politics leaving the Tories barely any chance of getting back into power. Ok, it wouldn't have been a 'classic' Labour party of old, but that party died in 1983 when Kinnock became leader and began the long process of trying to turn the party around after a bitter defeat.

In my own home town, they Liberals formed a Coalition with Labour last year to stop the Tories running the council - even after the coalition government was formed.

All I am trying to demonstrate is there is a narrative across over a 100 years of the Liberals NOT supporting the Tories. They had supported Labour causes far more than they ever have Tory. Yes, they are a capitalist, free-market party, but ever since removing Clause IV so are Labour, in terms of economic planning.

The current Lib/Tory co-operation is the exception, not the norm - and we must remember that, even if we don't ever forgive current leaders - just like Labour has never forgiven Ramsey MacDonald, who sold out his party more than Clegg has frankly.

I want to stress I don't agree with the cuts at all, my own Mother (after 30 years public service) has lost her job thanks to them. But if, as people with Centre-Left beliefs fight each other for not being left enough rather than the Tories, then the Tories will just keeping coming back like they always have. On the left, we keep forgetting the Tory vote consistently holds up better than the Labour one. In 2010, Cameron got more votes than Blair in 2005 and Labour got less then Major did in 1997 - no matter how much we want the Tories to go away, they simply are not.

The 20th Century was dominated by the Tories, and the 19th for that, because Tories are able to get together to oppose things they don't like. The left has to do the same in getting together to oppose what it loathes more than anything, the Tories. Just like The Democrats in the US - that party contains Union support, labour and liberals in opposition to the Republicans. In a country that is much, much more right-wing than left-wing they have been able to occupy the White House and the Capital Building more than the left has Downing Street and the House of Commons.

It's that scene in The Life of Brian - if only the Judean People's front and the People's front of Judea had got together to fight the Romans...

And yes, I think AV will help that.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:54 pm 
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thanks for that, a considered reply with relevant points but the main thrust of your argument is completely undone by millionaire banking scion clegg's opportunist liberal party leaping into bed with the millionaire banking scion cameron's recidivist tories.

this is not the time to be arguing niceties.

this government is systematically and deliberately undoing all of the work that labour has done since 1945.

if the liberals are so liberal, they should cross the floor.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 9:00 pm 
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Too right. It's ideological, class warfare to use an old skool term. The Liberals, fuck em I say, and all who sail in them. x


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:00 pm 
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Well if the tories and BNP don't want it then I do. I hate them with a vengence.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:46 pm 
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Not had time to contribute to this but have enjoyed reading Hot Charity's arguments. I have to agree with Beaux's view that there is a mistake in believing the Liberals are fundamentally a party of the left, evidenced by the current scenario we have. Vince Cable, who revealed his lack of political nous in showing off about Murdoch before he had him in the bag is calling for an AV Yes to end Tory rule...but isn't that what he is propping up now?

I think there is room for an open ended discussion about and referendum on voting systems but what we have here is a) not the immediate priority, and if the AV vote is lost what else will the Liberals have to show for their rich millionairre alliance? I understand the desire for electoral reform but making that the key issue for government shows how far from reality these people really are. b) a pre selected, we know best/this is what we will allow option rather than asking voters to consider other systems too.

I am against the current rushed optionn for change and am even more strongly opposed to the Clegg led Liberal party.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:37 pm 
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good points in this article.

Don't vote against Clegg vote against Cameron!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... referendum

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:05 pm 
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beaux nidle wrote:
thanks for that, a considered reply with relevant points but the main thrust of your argument is completely undone by millionaire banking scion clegg's opportunist liberal party leaping into bed with the millionaire banking scion cameron's recidivist tories.

this is not the time to be arguing niceties.

this government is systematically and deliberately undoing all of the work that labour has done since 1945.

if the liberals are so liberal, they should cross the floor.



Bob on that Clegg had his opportunity to show his morals and metal with the tuition fees and he was found wanting,they're destroying our country and taking away any chance of further education from our children and giving them no hope of a future..........if a person goes to their grave in ignorance then the state has failed them.......the end....it breaks my heart to see it all happening again in my lifetime,i was a boy when Thatcher got in and growing up with their negative bullshit was so depressing.........sadly the blue meanies have taken over Pepperland once again.............bastards

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